


Aphelion

by TheOV



Series: Twisting Timelines [3]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game), Tanis (Podcast)
Genre: "Geoff" van Sant, (We Get What We Deserve.), Alex Reagan Cameo, Arcadia Bay, Arcadia Gay, Blood and Injury, Crossover, Dangerous things, Disturbing Themes, Drama & Romance, Eld Fen, Emotional Baggage, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Gen, It's before the reveal., Mental Health Issues, Mysteries, Mythology - Freeform, One-Sided Attraction, Oops., POV Alternating, POV First Person, POV Multiple, POV Third Person, Paranormal, Podcast, Post-Save Chloe Price Ending, Psychological Trauma, Richard Strand Cameo, The Black Tapes Cameos, Wondrous Things, implied romantic feelings, magical things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-06-10 13:42:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 116,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15292761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOV/pseuds/TheOV
Summary: Direct Sequel to Fools of Us All.Nic Silver is on a mission, to chase down any and all leads that might connect to the mythical (or not-so-mythical) location of Tanis, a supernatural place which moves around the woods of the Pacific Northwest. Consumed by his quest, he pushes ever forward, but this time he is pushed toward the story of Arcadia Bay and its only two confirmed survivors: Chloe Price and Max Caulfield. Having gone through plenty on their own, they are at first dubious but then make him an offer he can't refuse: the truth. The only catch is that he must come with them on a physical journey while they take him on one through their memories, through the most traumatic moments of their lives. Arcadia Bay has always seemed weird, but it may be weirder than Nic ever dreamed, as might be his guides. Is this town related to Tanis, was its destruction, or is it possible that the similarities are coincidence?Most importantly, in pursuit of mystery in the modern world does it matter?(You should not necessarily need to know Tanis to enjoy this story.)





	1. The Seeker

**Author's Note:**

> I have absolutely no idea how y'all will receive this, but I truly hope you enjoy. Remember that this is a sequel to Fools of Us All and I recommend reading that first. I recommend fans of Tanis consider checking out the Life is Strange game series and that fans of Life is Strange look up the Tanis podcast. It is possible, I think, for fans of Life is Strange to enjoy this story without knowing Tanis. I am a little more dubious about fans of Tanis enjoying this without knowing Life is Strange, but I welcome you all to try. I appreciate hearing your thoughts about my interpretation of Nic, for whom I held a spot in my heart from his time as a supporting character on The Black Tapes Podcast. 
> 
> Either way, please enjoy, and if you're a reader of Kaukasos, please check the note at the start of the most recent chapter. Thank you!

Disclaimer: I own the rights to more or less nothing seen here, nothing from Life is Strange or the Public Radio Alliance or Pacific Northwest Stories. This is entirely a fanbased work for personal enjoyment. 

* * *

 

 

#  **Aphelion**

 

 _ **Aphelion** \- Noun_  
_The point in a planet or comet's orbit at which it is farthest from the sun._

# Chapter One: The Seeker

 

_From the Public Radio Alliance and Minnow Beats Whale, it's Tanis. I'm Nic Silver. We're telling the story of Tanis in order every two weeks, so if you're new to Tanis, you should go back and start at the beginning. We'll try not to get too far ahead. We'll be here when you get back._

 

_My long confusing quest for answers about the myth of Tanis began what already feels like a lifetime ago. When beginning this journey, I didn’t have a lot of leads to go on. Even with the expert help of a certain acerbic deep web dwelling information specialist, I really didn’t know what to do. Even before the investigation began I have to admit, I had a moment where I felt like I was drowning, floundering in all these half thoughts. It cannot be overstated how much MK’s work pulled me out of that moment and returned the determination to me that characterized the start of this investigation. Over time, as we got turned onto the idea that Tanis was likely to be localized here, in the Pacific Northwest, I asked MK to cast a wide net over the region and pull up any kind of news stories or reports of abnormal events in the area. At the time, we didn’t know things we know now, we didn’t know about Tanis and strange  environmental and atmospheric phenomena within the borders of what Cameron Ellis calls the Breach._

 

_That caused us to outright discard many, many things in the early days. For the most part, I’ve had the foresight to look these things over throughout the past few months and decide whether they should remain discarded. One story I didn’t, due to its extremely outlandish nature paired with the very real, unquestionable loss of life. While looking over our files for the show, an intern here at the Public Radio Alliance came across that file. She brought it to my attention and, rightfully, berated me for my negligence. Dutiful and actually a little grateful for the distraction from the things I am going through right now, I passed the information to MK to ask her to take a second glance at anything related to the file while I reviewed it. The file was entitled, ‘Arcadia Bay.’_

 

 _By the time the last episode was ready, I had already decided not to include this in it and that it warranted a small special of its own. So, here we are. Arcadia Bay was a small fishing town on the coast of Oregon which, in mid-October 2013, went from a population of around 2,300 to a population of 0 in the space of a couple of hours. Following a series of reported abnormal environmental and astronomical events witnessed in_ and only _in the city limits of Arcadia Bay, a freak storm formed off of the coast just before sunset on October 11th, 2013. The tornado was so severe that it actually resulted in the creation of a new tier in the scale used to measure tornadoes. Of those within a five mile radius of the town at the time it hit, there were only two confirmed survivors._

 

_One was a student at a prestigious private school in the area called Blackwell Academy, the other a lifelong resident of Arcadia Bay. When interviewed about the storm, they were both evasive and in perfect sync, describing the storm in ways that seemed inconsistent with reality. The way they described the storm, the tornado itself was almost the size of the city and by all signs more powerful than any tornado reported to date. The damage to the city was, bizarre, with that in mind. There was a surprising lack of damage to structures where the tornado first made landfall. That is to say, they were damaged, but not as severely as expected. Other parts of the city, as it happened, ended up as little more than piles of rubble. Reports indicate that, stricken by grief and in shock, the survivors, 18-year old Blackwell Academy student Maxine Caulfield and 19-year-old Chloe Price, lifelong friends, left the scene of the devastation shortly after first responders arrived and, presumably, never returned._

 

_At the time, as I said, I took all of this in mind and chalked the strangeness up to freak storm patterns and overactive imaginations. I sat the file aside and never touched it again. Upon review, though, I was struck by the similarities between the events that were reported in the days leading up to the town’s destruction and things I have seen, heard and read about in pursuit of understanding Tanis and, what Cameron Ellis calls the Breach, or what others have called ‘the Calm’. As I said, this will be a very special episode of Tanis. So if you’re here to hear about the Cult of Tanis, my hypnotherapy sessions or anything of the sort, you’re going to be disappointed. If you are, though, a fan of genuine mysteries, as I am, and a fan of snarky, if brilliant people and the stories they have to tell, you’ve come to the right place. Speaking of snarky, if brilliant people, what really pushed me down the rabbit hole on this one was, as I’m sure you’re all unsurprised to hear, a call from MK._

 

Nic twisted the faucet shut and reached out to seize a couple of wads of paper towel. Running the rough surface over his hands, it would have been reasonable for his mind to be miles away. It would have been reasonable for his head to be firmly in the Breach or on the location of his current subject of study. It wasn’t, though. He was staring into his own face in contemplation. It was his job to know peoples’ behavior, to know what was going on in their minds. If he didn’t, he could not ask the right questions. Looking in the mirror though, he wasn’t even sure of his own thoughts. Was he searching his face for some evidence that he was not as okay as he thought he was or was he staring regretfully at the dark circles under his eyes? No one could tell him. He couldn’t tell himself.  

 

Pushing aside shaggy brown hair, he gave himself a once over in the mirror. Beyond the dark bags under his eyes, he looked like he could use a shave. _I always look so much like Terry when I let this shit grow out,_ Nic thought, rubbing at the stubble on his chin. He and his cousin were mistaken for each other often enough that more than one unappreciated query as to whether they might not be secretly twins had come their way. _Seals it, you need a shave, Nic._ He was only glad that Alex wasn’t around to worry about him. Her plate was stacked high enough as it went and her struggles to maintain a friendly connection with Strand were sure to make a lot more work for her, in the near future.  

 

Nic splashed cold water twice, harshly against his face. The Seattle office was populated and active enough to keep him on his toes and all, but he had been staring at documents for over six hours and the workday was coming to a close. Well, it was coming to a close for everyone else. It was strange, but within the walls of the office he felt the tiniest bit _more_ centered. There were at least ten or eleven pages of research on this town in Oregon and the (relatively) recent developments with the only two survivors of its destruction waiting for him to finish reading and then analyze. It was going to be a late night for him.

 

Not bothering to do much more but dab the excess water from his face, Nic shut the door behind him, flexing fingers that were aching from what he could not help but imagine was the approach of some future arthritis. Alongside carpal tunnel, this was just one of the risks you took living a lot of your life digitally. Sometimes, this strange quest he found himself lost on limited that part of his life and other times it sent him into overdrive. Certainly, he did not have much of a digital presence beyond a twitter account and Tanis itself, now that MK had had her way with him. As far as he was given to understand there were not a lot of ways to even prove his existence outside of those two sources. _At least I haven’t had time to game in just about forever._

 

For a moment he paused in the hall and glanced around at it. Not for the first time, as he hurried to their office space, Nic wondered what listeners imagined when he mentioned the Public Radio Alliance offices in Seattle. Did they imagine a floor in some huge building? Maybe a single story building all to themselves? Maybe just one part of a strip mall? He chuckled at the idea. How would they take it if he one day uploaded a video tour of their office space and dashed their notions of his importance? North of the border their offices were somewhat nicer, but down here, well, it was certainly nothing to write home about. Nic shut their door behind himself a moment later and found himself immediately face to face with one of the interns from the PRA who was only responsible for archival work, but had proven herself to be more motivated than that.

 

“Nic,” she greeted, stopping in her tracks. He apparently had surprised her as much as she him, judging by the way she stood nearly frozen, clutching at a cellphone. For a moment he glanced over the look on her face and watched the echo of shock drain away. His eyes glanced down to the phone clenched in her right hand. It was his own. “I was just going to look for you. You’ve got a call waiting on line two, I can transfer it to you.” He reached out a hand and tried to plaster a grateful smile on his face. Sarah was actually not that much younger than he was. Nic knew that she was frustrated with the grind of internship. The window of time they had her for was closing and the two of them knew it. He just hoped that he expressed his gratitude genuinely and often enough to her while she _was_ working with him. _Actually I kind of owe her a gift basket or something for this one._ “It’s Meerkatnip.”

 

“Oh, shit,” he exclaimed. It was hard for him not to be aware of how much he perked up at this announcement. When she placed the phone in his hand, the smile on her face was telling. The brunette was far from the first person to make an assumption about the nature of his connection with MK. She was not going to be the last. The honest truth was, things had never been all too clear on that front but there remained one solid truth about that connection. Simply put: MK worked for him and she was, much like Sarah herself, utterly invaluable to his investigation. “You’re too damned good to me,” Nic told the woman, pausing just outside of the door to his own, small office. “You know that right?”

 

“As always,” she replied. “I’m just glad that that file is working out.”

 

“Oh it’s more than working out,” he told her. “I don’t know if it’s going to come out Tanis related but it’s precisely the kind of thing the show was originally meant for.” She gave an appreciative nod and, looking relieved that she did not have to go track him down, returned to the desk in the corner. “Right,” he said, realizing he was holding things up. “I’m fine to take this whenever.”

 

“Gotcha,” was her answer. He shut the door behind himself and flung a hand out in the dark. It took him a moment to find purchase on a lightswitch but the lights overhead buzzed to life soon enough, lighting the small and crowded combination recording-space-and-office perfectly fine. The windowless room used to be rather disconcerting to him. Now he was glad he could shut himself away from the world in such a way and focus on whatever piece of information, whatever lead was in front of him. It was simultaneously a bastion of quiet and the headquarters from which he continued on his little quest for the truth. Nic sat down, shoving his microphone away. Since it was not his usual place for recording (normally, he preferred to return to Vancouver for that) he only had the one microphone. It worked scarily well with his recorders, though and the acoustics were not _absolutely_ horrible in the room. The good news on that front was that the listeners were still being exposed to the first season, to the events leading up to that damned cabin. He had time before recording narration became necessary. The room around him did not do so badly for singing in. _One more thing the listeners can never know,_ he mused to himself. _At least this one has less in the way of world-shattering implications._ The phone rang and buzzed in his hand.

 

“Hey,” Nic called, answering. “Sorry about the delay.”

 

“No problem,” the woman on the other end answered. He kept one ear to the phone and leaned back in his office chair, imagining her face. Meerkatnip was strange to read sometimes. She was acerbic and cutting about the oddest things but whenever she felt like someone might be concerned she was angry, that usual tone, dripping with sarcasm, dulled slightly and she almost treaded carefully into the next stage of the conversation. About the only other time that happened was when she expressed serious, life-or-death concern for someone. It was the closest MK ever got to being the type to coddle a person or sugarcoat things. Originally, her attitude had been jarring. Now it was just refreshing: in a world full of bullshit and ambiguous allies and enemies, MK’s blunt attitude was, at least, consistent enough that it was something to grab onto when the hunt for Tanis became momentarily overwhelming and he felt disassociated from his life. “You recording this yet?”

 

“No,” he confessed, leaning forward and scrambling quite suddenly. The phone pressed between his ear and shoulder, Nic grabbed at cables with one hand, jerked his mouse with the other. The screen on the computer opposite of him came to life. His left hand sorted between various cable ends clumsily, despite having done so many times before. MK did not seem to be feeling playful at all, so she did not hurry him up with humming or even mocking him for not being on the ball. Between this and the implication that he _should_ be recording, it meant things were serious. He finally found what he wanted.

 

“Gonna wanna,” she told him, as if it should have been obvious.

 

“Almost,” he shot back at her, almost sensing her exasperation at his floundering. The wire jacked into his phone and he watched a program boot up in mere moments. MK remained silent on the other end. When she was in a particularly hurried mood, she hummed, not as if to amuse herself but as if she was speaking in the bottom of her throat, unable to resist the urge to info dump so she could get away to whatever was calling her. Nic had picked it up himself when he was having long conversations in his mind, finding himself forming the words in his vocal chords, softly, though not moving his lips. It was a habit now and originally, people had been concerned, hearing the noise as grunts and asking if he was in pain. Nic just found himself in tune with MK’s _forward progress_ mentality. “Alright, all set,” he told her.

 

“Okay,” she said, in the tone that someone else might have said ‘excellent’ in. _MK’s ‘_ I’ve got this’ _voice._

 

“What have you got for me?” he asked her, aware that this was no doubt going to air on a future episode and projecting just slightly more. His _Tanis_ voice, she called it.

 

_“Well, you told me to pour over that stuff from the town in Oregon and the confirmed survivors right?”_

 

_“Yeah,” I told her. I didn’t want to tell her I hadn’t even caught up with the original file again. She’d given me six hours. “So did you turn something new up?”_

 

_“Yes, and it’s actually only about half a year old.”_

 

_“Oh?”_

 

_“Strap in, kid, you’re gonna love this.” I chose to interpret strapping in as leaning forward in anticipation._

 

_“Go on.”_

 

_“One of the survivors went into a mental institution in mid 2014.”_

 

_“Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense. Who can blame them for being traumatized after watching their whole town go up?”_

 

_“Yeah, yeah, yeah but get this. This chick, Max Caulfield, she gets out of the loony bin and the first thing she sees is a crowd of reporters outside of her parents’ house. Someone leaked that she’d been in and got out.”_

 

_“That’s horrible. Did she say anything?”_

 

_“No, but whoever leaked wasn’t done yet. A couple months ago, they released an email onto some old conspiracy theory board about her. The board removed it pretty quick but--”_

 

_“But you found it because they’re no match for you.”_

 

_“Duh.” Meerkatnip is, as we all know, the best and no, I’m not saying that because I lost a bet with her over how quickly she could find all known contact information for Maxine Caulfield and her partner, Chloe Price. Not at all. “When she first came in she was spouting off delusions about seeing a dead girl, about being responsible for her town getting flattened and that her girlfriend was going to die if they didn’t let her kill herself.”_

 

_“That’s some heavy stuff.”_

 

_“No shit. It gets crazier. She mostly chilled out pretty fast but they kept her there for four-and-a half months because they didn’t think she was getting better, just pretending to. The email says that they only released her after she broke down and spent four hours in some kind of emergency session with her counselor. The guy who leaked it thinks she’s still out of it, but he did say one thing that I think is going to seal the deal about Arcadia Bay.”_

 

_“What’s that?”_

 

_“He says she used to tell stories about going and getting lost in the woods with her girlfriend when they were kids. Like, she said they used to do it every weekend.” MK was right. That did grab my interest. This was a common story associated with historical figures who were theorized to be connected to Tanis or to some magical place in the woods that might have been Tanis. Even someone as ostensibly removed from magical mysteries as Kurt Cobain was had been said to have been affected by long walks through the woods. If MK thought this was going to hook me enough to actually follow the investigation further, it just meant she knew me by now. “I’ve got all that and a lot more here.”_

 

_“Since no one’s found an address or phone number, I guess I’ll have to reach out to the Caulfield parents.”_

 

_“You wanna bet?”_

 

_“What?”_

 

_“You doubt me, even after all this time.”_

 

_“I just mean, people have been digging at these two for a long time now, trying to find them.”_

 

_“If I can’t find them, I’ll do the next job for you half price.”_

 

_“If you can?”_

 

_“Then I want to hear you say, ‘MK, you’re the best.’”_

 

_“Hah. Deal.”_

 

_“Cool shit. That email, their address and Price’s cell phone number are sitting right in front of me.”_

 

_“Of- of course they are.”_

 

_“So….”_

 

_“You’re the best. Can you se- oh never mind.”_

 

 _“Careful, it’s learning.” Yes. After nearing a year and a half of cooperation, I still haven’t learned to stop doubting MK’s tendency to do the impossible. Armed with fresh knowledge about the situation I made_ _some calls, shuffled around some appointments decided that tomorrow was going to be a big day. The survivors of the destruction of Arcadia Bay, Oregon, were right here in town, staying with one’s parents. The first time I went out and did a cold call on a potential new lead for Tanis I remember being so nervous. At this point in my life it’s far from the most awkward thing I have to do. If I had known the reaction I was going to get from one of the women, though, I probably would have second guessed myself. I can safely say that I would have missed one_ heck _of a story if I’d done that._

 

It wasn’t all that common that Nic could go to the office in the morning, talk to Sarah, call his higher ups, compose a couple of emails, have an early lunch in front of the computer and still go chase down a brand new lead in person. As it happened he was _barely_ leaving the city for the suburbs. After looking up the Caulfields’ address on Google Maps, Nic knew one thing: the Caulfields were moneyed individuals. This was why he was not entirely unprepared to drive into one of the nicer suburbs just outside of Seattle, not unprepared for the sight of the relatively nice, well maintained homes and lawns of the suburbs. What did throw him off was that as he pulled into the driveway, someone that plenty of people had been trying to find for some time for interviews was sat there on the cement, in broad daylight.

 

Chloe Price looked almost the same as she had in the interview Nic had rewatched the night before. The biggest difference was _slightly_ longer bright blue hair, though the lack of devastation on her face probably should have rated higher. The woman with the flashy look climbed out from beneath an old, beat up pickup truck with little difficulty, but uncomfortably enough that he saw her wince as she settled onto her ass beside the vehicle for a second and dropped the wrench she was holding. The vehicle’s hood was popped and Chloe Price was more or less filthy. Whatever she was up to, Nic thought this poor weather to be doing it in. It was cold. Looking the very definition of lanky in an oil-stained old tee shirt and jeans that were probably a couple sizes large on her, she stood up. Even before he got out of his old Hyundai, Nic swallowed, struck by the impression that the woman in front of him, the one now crossing her arms over her chest and watching him as if she didn’t quite trust him already, was going to be trouble at worst and a struggle to reach out to at best.

 

He unbuckled his belt. It clicked against the inside of his door as it retracted. Nic pushed the door open and turned, stretching his legs as he finally got to his feet. Almost as soon as the driver’s door had shut behind him, the woman narrowed her eyes at him as if looking through him. He did not know whether to be concerned or delighted that she looked confused, but he could imagine which of the two she would choose. A first look at this woman was not enough for him to say why he found her slightly imposing. It was going to take more time to come to that conclusion, but she certainly seemed to want to frame herself as imposing.

 

 _Okay, so even if this ends up not being Tanis related, this is fucking huge. Maybe not a genuine mystery, but a real curiosity._ Nic cleared his throat. The woman in front of him, Chloe Price, did not uncross her arms, did not do anything to obscure her immediate suspicion of him. Nic figured that made sense, given how long he had stalled getting out of the car to begin with. If he wanted to have any chance of not making a horrible first impression, it was time to find his voice. _I wonder,_ he thought as the woman’s narrowed eyes focused in on his own, _if she knows there are whole communities dedicated to conspiracy theories about her and her girlfriend._ He wasn’t sure. Both of the girls had notoriously private social media lives.

 

“Hi there,” Nic called, raising his voice both in volume and pitch just enough to give off a friendly, if inquiring, tone. “Ms. Price?” When approaching people about Tanis, he found that honorifics were hit and miss. Some people found it comforting, a gesture of respect and others seemed to think him disingenuous. It didn’t help that many people involved in Tanis were secretive, personal people by nature. The quirk in the woman’s eyebrow and the slight relaxing of her eyes didn’t really give away which of those she was. “My name is Nic Silver, from the Public Radio Alliance and I was wondering if-”

 

“I’m not interested,” she told him. Disheartening, but far from a ‘get off my property.’ Nic had learned a long time ago to obey ‘get off my property’ without question but if he had taken ‘not interested’ as an answer he would have never been able to talk to Avery Ellis, he would have never fallen down a couple of rabbit holes which had led him to making the (sometimes frustratingly minuscule) progress he had so far. “I don’t care what you want to ask, what you want to know or how you knew we were here. I’m not interested in telling you anything.” For an emphatic ‘fuck you’, this was almost polite. He was just considering his options, to voice his intent on being there or retreat and try to contact them by phone as he _should_ have started with, when it became clear that she was not alone.

 

Maxine Caulfield pulled her head from under the hood. He wondered why it was only just now that this was happening as he had been there for close to a minute or two. Despite being the younger of the two, Maxine Caulfield’s face had shown more wear and tear during the interview MK had sent him, not through physical signs, really, but through emotional ones. Now it was the other way around. Comparing their faces, Nic was able to pinpoint that Chloe Price slept about as well as he did, while her partner might not have missed an hour of sleep for a month. Strangely enough, despite looking moderately uncomfortable, _this_ woman didn’t show signs of hostility. With her appearance, Nic suspected he had a decent enough chance of making his pitch once without ended up on the wrong end of the wrench in Chloe Price’s hand.

 

“I do a show, a podcast called Tanis,” he tried, waiting for any sign that one or both of them had reached the end of their patience with him. “It’s about a myth about a strange location in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, which might move around geographically. The reports of the things which went on in Arcadia Bay during the week before the tornado have some similarities with the kinds of events that happen in the area around this place.” That seemed to be enough. For just a moment, the girl with the vivid, shocking blue hair lifted her left arm, hand still clutching the wrench and pointed it at his car. Nic was waiting to be summarily dismissed when the woman blinked and lowered it again.

 

“A podcast?” she asked him, looking a bit dubious. Nic hoped that his face didn’t light up the way he felt like it was doing.

 

“Yeah,” he confirmed as the brunette standing at the nose of the truck slowly moved around to join her partner. “It’s kind of like radio on the internet.”

 

“I know what podcasts are, asshole.” For just a second, the way the woman in front of him rolled her eyes and the slight huff of frustration struck him as so familiar that she might as well have shrunken three or four inches, grown long brown hair and started demanding he pay her in bitcoin. This woman even _sounded_ like part of her thought he was an insufferable dumbass. Nic wasn’t sure if MK was even in town (he had learned to only make personal inquiries when he had a reason, so as not to spook her too overmuch) but part of him wished he had asked her to come on this trip. _Man, what would she have charged me for this._ “It’s just, what did you say your name was?”

 

“Nic Silver,” he answered, quietly. A small wellspring of hope bubbled up and filled in the pit in his stomach which had formed when she seemed about to dismiss him. Nic pulled at his jacket as if to pull it tighter around himself as a strong gust of wind struck them all. At least it was not raining. _Or snowing._ “I’m with the Public Radio Alliance and I want to interview you to determine if your story has any connection to a series of strange events spread across the woods of the Pacific Northwest.” He swallowed. Last time, he had used the name of the city and it had been _then_ that he first saw Chloe Price’s face transform into the dismissive, even angry look she had been wearing moments before. This time he skirted around naming the city of Arcadia Bay. “Is it alright with you if I record this conversation?”

 

Nic reached into his pocket and slowly pulled the voice recorder from it even while the blue-haired woman in front of him waved the question off, her brow furrowing. That was not a no, but it certainly was not a yes and Nic only pushed that envelope in situations where he felt his life or the investigation were in jeopardy. Frankly, the only time he could remember recording someone after they told him to stop doing so had been the conversation with the combative and elusive Avery Ellis. Something had told him then that that conversation was going to be vital. Now, that same voice was telling him to slow down, to wait. For all he knew, if he pushed too hard, he was as likely to take that wrench to the skull as he was to back toward his car and drive away.

 

“What is it, Chloe?” This was the first time Maxine Caulfield spoke. Her voice was low and entreating, as if she was afraid to speak or maybe afraid of her partner. Nic dismissed that last idea almost immediately. The brunette was no longer looking at him in nervous curiosity, she was staring at her partner with trust and concern shining in her eyes. That warning part of his brain grew distracted, imagining how he was going to describe the pair of them to listeners.   
_‘Maxine Caulfield is shorter than her partner, but something about the patient way she speaks, suggests someone who is used to being a supportive rock in others’ lives.’ Awful presumptuous, Nic._ First impressions had never been too misleading in Nic’s experience, though he had trouble putting into words where the impression came from.

 

“A couple months back, Steph linked me to a podcast. I’ve told you how she’s gotten really obsessed with Arcadia Bay lately. I listened to like… three episodes, I think? It was about these two people trying to find a lost city or- or something like that. He said he was ‘chasing the last great mystery’ or some shit.” In the days following the events of the cabin, when Nic had really first started piecing together the narrative for the first season, he had fluctuated between out of his mind scared and kind also kind of idealist. The idea that the lasting impression he had made on any listener, however briefly they had listened, was the ‘chasing mysteries’ line was a little concerning. It wasn’t _untrue_ but it gave off an unprofessional image.

 

“That, uh, that sounds like your friend showed you my podcast alright.” Sometimes if it came out that someone had heard of Tanis or even of the Public Radio Alliance, it was a benefit. It gave him something to work from as it had when he went to interview a man who inexplicably had two feet despite a DNA test matching a severed foot which had washed up along a nearby shore to him. This time, though, he felt a little cowed by the idea that he had left that impression on this woman. Not cowed, maybe, but as if he was going to need to be on his back foot for the remainder of his interaction with both of them. _However long that’s going to be._ “Your friend thought it might have something to do with what happened to Arcadia Bay?” The pale woman’s face transformed again, frustrated and dismissive, as if she just realized she had been talking to a journalist. He had that effect on people.

 

“We aren’t interested,” the taller woman declared, yet again. She did not brandish her wrench about like a magic wand this time, but she did turn as if to walk back over to her truck, as if to say the conversation was over. Nic barely held in a relieved sigh as the shorter brunette reached up and placed her hands on Chloe Price’s shoulders. Nic could not hear what Maxine Caulfield was saying over a gust of wind and, as if to make matter worse, by the time the wind had passed, the two were speaking mere inches from one another. Chloe Price really did not want him to hear what they were saying. Occasionally, the taller of the women would gesture to him or shrug or throw her hands up in the air in frustration, her face shifting between exasperated and pissed off. Maxine Caulfield spoke steadily, quietly to her girlfriend and when it was done, the taller woman turned, threw up her hands as if to say she did not care one way or the other and marched toward the front door. Nic heard it slam behind her even as the brunette stepped forward.

 

“May I call you Maxine?” Nic asked. Honorifics had not gone over well with the other woman, so he was not about to try it with her, especially since it looked as if the brunette wanted to talk whereas her partner seemed vehemently against the idea. Instead of this having the desired effect, a shudder and a look of near revulsion crossed the woman’s face. She slid her hands into the pockets of a grey hoodie which hung open and unzipped in the front.

 

“It’s Max,” she told him, her voice still low and quiet, “never Maxine, please.” Nic nodded. This was perhaps the friendliest interaction he had had with either of them thus far. He was not about to let this moment go without ingratiating himself to her slightly. Whether this was Tanis related or not, it was a story he was becoming more and more interested in hearing told. “Come in out of the cold, it’s fucking freezing out here.” Nic wondered if that sweatshirt was a little too thin.

 

“Thank you,” he said, “but I have to ask first, do you mind if I record this?” Nic gestured with his right fist, the one still clenching his digital recorder softly. “If I do and you decide you don’t want to let me use an interview with you anyway, I promise it won’t see the air.”

 

_Max let me into her family’s home after agreeing to allow me to record what was happening, provisionally. I got the feeling that she had difficulty denying the request. I hope it was because she suspected that I mostly wanted to cover myself in case any kind of… unpleasantness came about. Chloe Price was somewhat intimidating in her own right and the idea of being on the wrong side of her wrench wasn’t appealing in the least. She was nowhere to be found when we, that is to say - Max and I, sat down at her kitchen table._

 

_I had already begun to suspect that the Caulfields were well off, but looking around the house I felt that either nothing was more than a couple of years old or they took meticulous care of everything they owned. It even looked like someone dusted more or less on the regular. The kitchen was clean, a pristine white and sleek. It even had a kettle sitting on the stove, as if waiting for afternoon tea. The only thing to suggest people actually lived there was a used ashtray in the center of the table shaped like a hotdog wearing a cape, and a couple of plates in the sink. Someone had just had lunch. When Chloe Price rejoined us, I was sitting rather awkwardly waiting for a sign that it was alright to speak. She came into the room with a joint in one hand and a look on her face as if she was chewing on something bitter. Her face and hands were still covered in oil and grime, but she had apparently hastily changed her clothes._

 

_“Alright, let’s get down to this.” Chloe took a long drag and, reaching for the ashtray in the center of the table, remarked on how happy she was that ‘this shit is legal here.’ This is not an uncommon opinion. I mused for a second on what ‘this’ was we were getting down to, when I realized that I was being given another chance to pitch my interview. Unfortunately, it was about that point that the woman with the bright blue hair looked down and saw my recorder on the table. “You’re recording this?”_

 

“You’re recording this?” Chloe Price asked him, her voice rising quite suddenly. Nic blinked at her in confusion. The transformation from ‘resigned and getting high’ to ‘preparing to fly off the handle’ was almost instantaneous. The taller woman looked from him, to the device on the table and back to Max Caulfield as if trying to get a read on the situation. Nic started to speak but he stumbled over his words and that was all the opening the woman needed to take over the conversation. “What the fuck do you think you’re going to _get_ here, seriously?” At this, Max Caulfield lifted one hand and placed it on her partner’s arm, the one whose hand wasn’t holding a bit of the skunky. Again, something passed quietly between the two of them, but this time Nic could hear at least the placating tone in the shorter woman’s voice, before the blonde turned dark blue eyes on him and spoke.

 

“I’m sorry, Nic,” Max Caulfield told him. _Okay, we’ve hit first name basis._ That was a good sign. Nic thought back to the stories told in that leaked email, about a crazy woman raving and ranting about her girlfriend’s dead ex coming back to life, who would somehow kill her if Max did not kill herself. This woman was softer spoken and more composed than that story had led him to expect, even after her apparent recovery. “I’m not sure we can- actually, I’m pretty sure we can’t help you. I don’t understand much about what your show is about, but from what Chloe said, it sounds like it’s something else entirely.”

 

“Maybe, maybe not,” Nic started, trying to appear reasonable as he focused on the shorter woman and leaned forward on his elbows. “But even if not, I really would love to ask you about the abnormal events reported in town during the days leading up to the storm. You’re the _only_ confirmed survivors. People are curious. People have always wanted to know what happened.” Nic tried to stress this, tried to gauge if they knew that they were the subject of the kinds of speculation reserved for heads of state and historical figures with bizarre legends around them, like Billy the Kid or Grigori Rasputin. Apparently, this had been the wrong angle to take.

 

“Dude,” the taller woman responded, no longer sounding as angry as she did disgusted. “Almost everyone I’ve ever even _liked_ died that day. I don’t give a _fuck_ how curious people are.” Chloe Price had gotten upset at him a couple of times during their short interaction in the driveway. This, however, was the first time that her behavior struck him as aggressive. Nic swallowed and considered whether he should just grab the recorder and go. A follow-up phone call might work, but then again, these two had a history of not returning journalist’s phone calls. He was _in_ their home. If he had any chance to get the interview, to get the story, it was _this_ one.

 

“Is there a reason you might not want the story to come out?” The question was actually kind of innocent, mostly curious. The fact that the wording stood out as accusatory and judgmental didn’t strike him until he saw Max Caulfield go almost as pale as her partner. In that moment, he was very much glad that the woman was holding a joint and not a wrench. The brunette took the blunt when the taller girl passed it, eyes sharp and face hard and then put both of her grimey, oil-stained hands flat down on the table, stood and leaned over it so that her face was surprisingly close to his recorder while her eyes remained locked on his.

 

“Fuck. You.” _At least she enunciated for the recorder,_ Nic thought, guiltily.

 

“L-look,” he started, backpedaling. “I totally didn’t mean that the way that it came out - it’s just that you guys have been so elusive, it’s led to a lot of people wondering why you don’t want to talk at all about it.” Chloe Price lifted her head from where it had just been, hovering inches above his recorder and let loose a tirade.

 

“Maybe because we don’t owe anything to people like you. You’re not even here to play reporter, you’re just another one of those _legend tripping_ jackass sonsabitches like the fuckers that used to harass us on the fucking _daily._ ” None of this was very good to put on the air. Nic knew he probably should have been thinking more about trying to save face with the woman than that, but the thought struck him immediately and left a sort of absurd amusement behind, even in the face of the dressing down coming his way. “You talk a lot, but you don’t know _shit_ about the _weird_ out in the world, the _unusual._ You’re just another 20 somethin’ guy with some technology and an ego.” Strangely calm, Nic interrupted even Max Caulfield’s attempt to calm the woman opposite of him down.

 

“You’re wrong on that last part,” he said calmly, resisting the urge to fold his hands in front of him, in defiance of her aggression. She was capable of intimidating him plenty, but he understood her anger. He wanted to address it. He wanted to quell it. “You don’t find your way into Tanis without running into a lot of things that can’t be explained.” _Actually, a lot of it is things that most days I don’t know if I want to have explained._ While she waved a dismissive hand and made a pfft sound, the brunette to Chloe Price’s left was now watching him again, her left hand on her partner’s right elbow. “Throughout the last couple of hundred years, there have been stories about all kinds of controversial or big name figures from this area going into the woods and coming out changed or inspired or insane, from Charles Manson to Kurt Cobain to some people that are only really big in certain circles, like LeVay.” He seized onto the attention she was paying him, the way her mouth hung slightly open as if about to begin repeating after him, processing. The woman, an amateur photographer, looked like _she_ was the one recording what he said.

 

“Lots of these stories about Tanis, or about the Pacific Northwest, have recurring themes: a cabin, weird sights in the sky, strange plants animals, strange animal behavior, people suddenly going violently insane or coming back so completely changed that they might as well not be the same person.” Across from him, as Chloe Price lowered herself into her seat, fuming, Max Caulfield slowly nodded. “Does any of that sound familiar? Does any of this make any sense? My notes say that you two used to go out into the woods every weekend. Have you ever seen anything like this?” Chloe Price tensed up again.

 

“How would you know that?” she asked him. Nic knew the woman wasn’t going to like his answer, so he turned and addressed it to Max. The little red light on the recorder continued to mark that the conversation was being monitored.

 

“Unfortunately,” he sighed, “my information specialist recovered an email leaked by one of the people who worked at the mental health facility you transferred to here in Seattle. I’d be more than happy to share it with you, if that would help.” _That works, try to establish a two-way connection._ He wanted them to know he was not an enemy. Yeah, he was some douchey ‘20-somethin’ guy in a pleather jacket with a bit of an ego. As far as Nic was concerned, his ego was probably the only reason he had been able to keep chasing Tanis during his first few days out of the cabin, out of the calm.

 

“It still sounds like you’re chasing a myth,” Max Caulfield - or maybe it was safe to just start thinking of her as Max- told him. This time it was she who put her elbows on the table and leaned in. This time it was she who folded her hands over one another as if completely calm in the face of what was being told to her. Nic understood, but it seemed like his only chance to get through to them was to convince them that he had a chance, however small, of understanding that the world was not as simple as to explain all of this away with one freak storm system. “What we went through was real and actual. Besides, even if your myth was real, it sounds unrelated.”

 

“I told you,” he said, feeling desperate. “Tanis _isn’t_ just a myth. Or at least, the place that inspired the myth of Tanis, isn’t. It’s there. It’s here, in the Pacific Northwest. I’ve _been_ there.” This was too personal, too much information being given. It was just that quite suddenly this felt like a promising avenue to go down, relation or no relation to Tanis. “We’ve got evidence that over the last century or two it’s moved around this area, and if it’s moved around Washington, it might have moved around Oregon, too.” Chloe Price looked less aggressive but no less dismissive. Max’s face had contorted into pity the minute he started speaking and it remained fixed there as he finished. That desperation did not go away. “The podcast hasn’t caught up to it yet, but I spent _a week_ there. The only parts of it I have any recollection of are horrible. I want to _know._ If this is connected, then that’s better. If not, then it might still be an important story to tell. Don’t you understand?” Nic looked across the table, this time shifting his gaze between both women. By this point, even Chloe Price looked pityingly at him. _Okay, played your hand too soon or too hard. They think you’re insane._ There was, after all, all the possibility in the world that he was.

 

“Nic, you’re in over your head here.” Chloe’s answer was blunt and to the point, but it was surprisingly calmly delivered given her earlier outbursts, given that the red was still fading from her face. The taller woman reached toward her girlfriend for what was left of the dwindling blunt. Nic watched her take a drag and then turned to look at Max, who shook her head slowly and a little sadly. “As weird as what you’re talking about sounds, what we’ve experienced would be so much weirder.”

 

“I’ve heard about a lot of _weird shit_ in the woods around the Pacific Northwest. Even where we are now in the podcast, if you listened you’d get an idea. Either way, this is the next story on the list that _might_ be about the same thing. I have to try.”

 

“Nic,” Chloe said again, calling him by his name and then speaking as if she were trying to coax someone small or distressed (or both) out of a hiding spot. “This isn’t the same.”

 

“How can you be sure?”

 

“Duh, because I lived it?” Again, the reaction struck him as so MK-like that he couldn’t help it. He grinned at her, shaking his head in frustration. Nic worked his fingers through his hair once and then turned back to the women, to see Chloe looking at him as if worried he was going to grow fangs.

 

“You’re smiling, why?”

 

“Because you and MK, the friend who works with me on Tanis, would get along really damn well.” That was the nicest way he could think to say that Chloe Price had a habit of speaking her mind without regard to anyone’s feelings. It was also not inherently something he hated. She was just so damned dismissive and this was so damned important. Nic had yet to be told to get the hell out, so he lined up to take the proverbial last shot at this conversation. First, though, Chloe snorted.

 

“I kind of remember her. I liked her. No nonsense.”

 

“Listen,” Nic started, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “It’s something that’s still a ways off from being shared on the broadcast, but I have been through more than you can imagine while chasing this down. Things that I still cannot process, things that keep me up at night. There’s nothing that you can tell me that I won’t be able to handle, whether I believe it or not.” They were putting on an awfully big show about a whale beaching and an astronomical phenomenon being blamed on refraction. The taller woman looked as if she was about to get irritated with him again, but this time Max only raised her hand. The Photographer did not look away from him, not even to see if her girlfriend noticed the response. Her face no longer held any pity. Instead, it had transformed into a grim echo of discontent.

 

“Don’t, Chloe.” This time, the short brunette did not speak placatingly. She was trying to impose her will onto the situation, to stand her ground on an issue she seemed to expect her girlfriend to disagree on. Nic watched Chloe’s eyebrows knit together and then the taller woman sat back in her chair. He did not know why this stood out to him, but her hands left a trail of grease and oil as it slid across the dark wooden tabletop.

 

“Why are you so eager to waste your time on this - no offense meant, here - shit? You have to know-” the brunette merely left her hand up in place and eventually her partner’s objection died and all that was left was confusion and concern. When he turned back to Max, she was staring him dead in the eyes. Silence, uncomfortable and almost otherworldly reigned over the table for almost two minutes. During that time, Max’s eyes never left his and he found he could not look away. This was disturbingly personal, as he watched a myriad of emotions like guilt, anger, frustration and fear play across the woman’s face as she stared at him.

 

“It would be kinda hard to explain right now,” Max said finally, turning her head toward her partner. “But I promise to when he’s gone.” _Oh, guess I don’t get let into that little loop._ “Okay, Nic. I’ll answer your questions, here and now. When you’re done, if you want, I’ll give you an option.” The statement was not ominous in and of itself even with its meaning being rather unclear. He found himself again running a hand through his neck length hair, this time to straighten it after his earlier frustrations had left it disarrayed. He wondered what he looked like to her.

 

“An option to what?”

 

“An option to hear the whole story, or not.”

 

“All of it?” This time, Chloe was the one who spoke. The woman turned in her chair, looking a little vulnerable, a little exposed. The expression on her sharply angled face was almost enough to make him feel as if he were some sort of illicit voyeur, spying on something intensely private. This was not the first time a conversation in pursuit of a lead on Tanis had made him feel this way. It _was_ the first time that this had been accompanied by both guilt and becoming somewhat endeared to the person wearing that look.

 

“All of it that’s mine to tell,” Max told her, her slightly pale lips turning up into a soft smile. “I won’t tell the parts that aren’t, but I think you should.” Chloe seemed put off by this, because she made as if to fold her arms over her chest, remembered she was holding what was left a joint and then turned back toward Nic, but lowered her head toward the table. “Ask away,” Max told him, her voice still and steady, louder than he had heard it so far. Nic did not need any notes to remember the questions he and Alex had come up with over their panic skype call the night before. There were so many questions, but really, for a first interview there were only three or four that might open the door properly, so he decided not to push his luck and go any further than that, for the moment.

 

“First, what was the first strange thing you saw? It was the supposed eclipse, right? Can you describe it to me?”

 

“No, Nic. The first sign was the snow, in the middle of a sixty degree day.” Something about the way Max labeled it a ‘sign’ was deeply disturbing. Nic felt like looking her in the eyes was a dangerous gamble, so he folded his hands in front of him much as she had done earlier and waited for her to go on. “It started around sundown and went on for half an hour. Nothing stuck, no one had any good explanation other than ‘weather is weird. Or ‘life is strange sometimes.’” Beside the brunette, the girl taller girl grimaced slightly, as if maybe those had been _her_ words. “The eclipse came next. I was watching it with a boy I went to school with. A friend who was sitting and talking with me because I’d been through a pretty rough day.”

 

“Was that the day of the uh,” Nic paused and looked between the two. It was hard to say what might set Chloe Price off. “The suicide attempt?” Max nodded. “And the beaching?”

 

“Nothing that seemed immediately special except that there were three of them.” Max was answering his questions, but she seemed to be doing it as quickly and shortly as possible. This was not quite what he had expected after a long struggle to get an interview at all. _I’m the first person they’ve talked to about this since the interview right after it happened._ Or at least, he was fairly certain he was the first journalist. “And before you ask, the double moons were freaky but, by that point I knew that it was nothing compared to what came next.” _Knew?_

 

“What do you mean?” he asked, unable to stop himself from noting the way Chloe Price’s head had just jerked up slightly and her mouth hung open in some surprise. To _his_ surprise, Max shook her head.

 

“That is part of the _whole_ story. We won’t be doing that here or now.” Nic sighed.

 

“Are you done now?” Chloe asked, sounding jarred and somewhat upset.

 

 _“Are you done now?”_ _I wasn’t sure if she was directing the question at me or at Max Caulfield, so I stayed quiet. I didn’t want to piss her off again and get tossed out of the house, not now that they -- well, one of them -- were talking. In fact, I thought it best I not look at her or her grungy black tee and ragged jeans at all. Judging by the few social media pictures people had managed to dig up of the two of them, this was Chloe Price looking a lot more like she usually did._

 

 _“We’re not done,” Max insisted, lifting her chin and looking first at Chloe and then at me as if_ I _was going to object. I was just happy to have finally gotten somewhere after their earlier stonewalling. I admit that_ this _time, when she leaned toward me as if trying to look into my eyes from even closer than before, I was a little unnerved about the smaller woman’s behavior. It stuck in the back of my mind that she had been destructive and suicidal only a few months ago. “If you want the full story, go home, gear up and then call us. To get the story, you’re going to have to come to Oregon with us.” This was not well received at all by Chloe Price._

 _“Why in the_ fuck _would we do that?” I let the two of them argue for a few minutes and quietly considered how hard it would be to get time away for a lead of this magnitude. I knew the answer to Chloe’s question instinctively and Max confirmed it for me a minute or so later._

 

_“I can’t relive this story without seeing Arcadia Bay and- and confirming it, that it’s real and besides, you couldn’t grasp the scope of it without seeing it. If you want it, you’ll come. Next Friday.”_

 

_“What if I don’t want to go out to an abandoned town with two strangers by myself?”_

 

_“Then bring that friend of yours that helps with the podcast.” Chloe sounded disgusted, so I figured that anymore stalling was going to probably mean a wasted opportunity and this was too good, too big to pass up. I doubted that MK would want to go out in the field like this. She’s been a little nervous about being the ‘face of Tanis’ since her home was compromised by the people who were following me around at the time. There was, however, someone I had called numerous times to go into situations I was not entirely sure of. I decided then and there, looking each of these women in the eyes, that there was no way I was stepping foot in the remains of Arcadia Bay without Geoff van Sant. “I’ll give you the specifics when you answer. You’ve got 72 hours to decide, so that we have enough time to make plans.”_

 

_With that, even the woman who had been the friendliest to me since I rolled up on the Caulfield’s property had apparently finished with me. I was being dismissed. Surprisingly, Chloe did not take any sort of perverse pleasure in escorting me to the door._

 

“You’ve got 72 hours to decide, so that we have enough time to make plans.” Nic nodded, slowly and realized by the way that Max stood and made for the next room that the conversation was over. Chloe, looking a little out of sorts, seemed to make the connection at the same time. Nic kept his recorder running as he lifted it up, but slowly he stood, looking at Chloe Price and sure that he should say _something_ to her, but unsure what was appropriate. Her cooperation in this seemed to hinge entirely on her girlfriend’s. That was not ideal.

 

The taller girl caught the smaller’s hand before Max could get away and pulled her in for a very tight hug which Nic felt again like a voyeur for witnessing. He did his best to stare anywhere else until the two split and Chloe began to lead him toward the front door. At first, he expected to be summarily dismissed without any kind of goodbye at all. However, as he stood just outside on the doorstep, Chloe cleared her throat. The dreary, cool December day sapped some of the warmth Nic had managed to regain during his time within the walls of the Caulfield household.

 

“Look,” the woman started, rubbing at the back of her neck with one hand, anxiously. “It’s nothing personal. I’d be pissed by anyone asking about Arcadia Bay. I’m pretty pissed, still, actually, especially considering you convinced my girl to go back there. There are- there are ghosts there for us.” That seemed like a reasonable thing to say.

 

“I understand ghosts of the past,” Nic told her. Unbidden, the mental image of a woman, one whose face he only remembered seeing in photos came to mind. In this mental image, Tera Reynolds was holding her own right arm aloft in her left hand. While he had recounted this horrible image under hypnosis, he had no actual memory of such an event. It did not mean that the very idea did not upset him. Chloe Price sized him up briefly before answering.

 

“I know enough to know that. That’s why Max wanted to hear you out. She read it on your face. If I wasn’t so pissed off, I would have too.” This seemed like the closest thing to approval or a goodbye that he was going to get. Nic turned off his recorder and shoved it into his pocket, keeping his hand there and shoving his left hand into the other pocket to boot. The old blue hyundai waited faithfully in the driveway, with a nice strong working heater ready to come to life. It beckoned to him. Chloe Price wasn’t done yet, though. “You know, your fans won’t believe this story, no matter how weird your ancient disappearing city or whatever gets.”

 

“If they believe the rest of this season, about the things I’ve been through, they just might.” Nic left the Caulfields’ home as abruptly as he had arrived. To him, that seemed fitting.

  



	2. The Plan

Disclaimer: I own the rights to more or less nothing seen here, nothing from Life is Strange or the Public Radio Alliance or Pacific Northwest Stories. This is entirely a fanbased work for personal enjoyment. 

* * *

#  Chapter Two: The Plan

 

Chloe stood back up straight as the shower began to run, giving the water heater time to adjust levels and make it so that she would be neither freezing cold nor scalded when she stepped under the water stream. Chloe was not necessarily in the hottest of moods, still. The memory of the man who had just left the house maybe ten minutes beforehand still stung like a thorn in a paw. The gall of the man to come in and suggest that there was some reason they didn’t want the truth out about Arcadia Bay, like they were hiding something, it was fucking unbelievable. It didn’t help anything that he was entirely right.  He couldn’t possibly know that, which made things all the worse. Chloe popped her knuckles. This sound resounded over the stream of water. It was too quiet for her taste and she had known it would be. 

 

That was why, sitting on the edge of the sink was an old CD player which had been picked up second hand outside of Seattle the  _ last  _ time Max and Chloe had lived there. It was one of the few things alongside the bed, a dresser and an old television (and, of course, her pirated music and film collection) to make it to Seattle from LA. Today, when she pressed the play button, it began to play track 7 of an old mix intended to be listened to on days just like today, when she was pissed and there was just nothing she could do about it. She stared at her oil slicked face in the mirror in front of her, as of yet unclouded by the steam which would soon build up in the room and condense across its surface. 

 

**_When I get mad_ ** **_  
_ ** **_And I get pissed_ **

**_I grab my pen_ **

**_And I write out a list_ **

**_Of all the people_ **

**_That won’t be missed._ **

**_You’ve made my shitlist._ **

 

Despite the fact that for at least the next couple of hours, the house would be empty save for Max herself, Chloe was rather glad to draw the shower curtain tightly closed behind her. She was  _ glad  _ when a further curtain between her and the house was made by the humidity and yet another by the music. Threefold, her protection against thinking about anything or anyone outside of the confines of the damned shower was about the best chance she had of understanding precisely why she was so mad. It was also her only real private time, in the long run. She reached sideways, soaked and lathered up a rag and decided to start with the remnants of oil and grime caking her face.  _ The most annoying thing about the guy was that he seemed like he thought he was being… real with us.  _ It didn’t seem possible that, despite his protestations to the contrary, he would be capable of understanding what they went through. Not  _ really.  _ It all smacked of a waste of time, not to mention being seriously stressful on Max as much as herself. She understood what Max was thinking about wanting to go back and try to find closure, too. It just sounded naive as all hell to Chloe.  _ What kind of closure could there really be from something like this? And really, this Nic guy  _ _ may have seen scary things or shit he didn’t understand, but we’re talking about things that would blow his fucking mind. Whatever weirdness  _ I’m  _ going through would blow his mind, much less Max’s time warrior routine. _

 

Chloe tried to push the man from her mind so she could finish up washing, but it really went no quicker. Whether she was irritated or the evidence of her afternoon’s activities were especially hard to wipe away today, the battle just felt a little bit on the endless side. By the time Chloe started to soap her hair up, she had gone through about a quarter of the tracks on the CD she had burnt what felt like a long time ago in an apartment, far, far away. Chloe let it roll on as she threw the towel aside and began to pull on her clothing, one article at a time, almost a little too mechanically. She had taken the time to pick out her punkass best, for the evening, but she still did not feel her punkass best, if that made sense. 

 

She was no longer angry, though the player continued to spew tunes for angry mornings. There were days, Chloe considered as she stepped out of the shower, turned the water off and set about drying, that this CD player was the only thing that motivated her to get out of bed in the morning, back in Los Angeles. This was especially true and frequent during the period of time between Max’s psychotic episode and their mutual return to Seattle. Alone, she had not felt the motivation to get up, much less shower, cook, eat, work, clean or generally function like a human being. Getting angry had been her only option. That was when Chloe had first realized that anger had been her only option, before, after Rachel’s disappearance, up until she got Max back. 

 

She applied a bit of eyeliner mostly for the sake of doing it, of feeling like she was  _ more  _ than she had been back during those days when a shower had felt like a great expenditure of energy and then turned off the CD player. Where she was going, Chloe knew she was going to be somewhat distracted and that was for the best. She looked forward not to thinking about Arcadia Bay or this Nic Silver character ( _ Really, who the fuck is actually named Silver? _ ) for a couple of hours. Sunday dinner at the LGBT youth group she volunteered with would at least take her focus while she was cooking it. Sitting with people and talking during dinner was guaranteed to be fairly distracting, too.  _ If I can get there, tonight.  _ Chloe pushed open the bathroom door, not entirely able to deny she was probably a bit too tired, tonight. She had not done  _ much  _ today, so this sense of exhaustion was a little bit familiar and disturbing. Chloe slapped herself on the cheek a couple of times and turned left down the hall, bare feet padding across thick carpet as she tracked through the quickest (and only) route to the kitchen, down the hall and through the living room. She was halfway to the kitchen by the time she fished her phone out of the pocket of her jeans. This meant that she paused, settling onto a seat on the couch. 

 

_ Me _

_ Hey, J. Down to get there tonight, but need a ride if ur coming by this way _

 

_ Jordan _

_ Yeah can do. That old piece of shit give out _

 

_ Me _

_ Just needs a few things. could probably get it going, but like being nice to it. It’s old. Got gas money.  _

 

_ Jordan _

  1. _Are we being blessed with your better half?_



 

_ Me _

_ Fuck you. Every1 knows Im the better half but I thnk she’s a little overloaded today. Had an unexpected visitor and that fucked her up _

 

_ Jordan _

_ OK, see you in about an hour then.  _

 

_ Me _

_ Thx _

 

Sometimes, knowing on a subconscious level that she was living with the Caulfields, it was still disconcerting to look up and see this place and not their home in Arcadia Bay. She had just spent so much time  _ there  _ that the new place was jarring. The living room, for example, was large and spotless. Its walls were a tiny bit spartan, but they were a nice neutral color and tied the grey carpet and area rug together nicely. By far and away the best part of the room was the large, flat screen mounted on one wall, of course. The couch was comfortable too, even if the loveseat was a little too stiff for her tastes. She and Max had gotten their fair share of usage out of  _ that,  _ especially in the weeks following Max’s release from the hospital. Chloe’s attention was dragged to the present by a clanging noise from the kitchen. It sounded as if Max was up to something. 

 

She strolled in a bit quieter and more hesitantly than she meant to, mostly because she knew that they had both been through something about an hour beforehand and her shitty mood had probably made things even worse for Max instead of helping.  _ You weren’t being protective of her, you were being protective of yourself,  _ she thought. This was not really her scolding herself, this was just part of her ever growing effort to understand her own emotions. Talking with a therapist, herself, had been kind of an eye opener. She had not been able to maintain that connection, because counseling cost money, but they had worked with a local psychiatrist to secure her some meds. Speaking of meds, they were the first thing Max reminded her of the moment Chloe stepped into the kitchen. 

 

The brunette was filling a large pot with water when Chloe entered, looking a bit absentmindedly around the room until her eyes landed on her girlfriend and then, immediately, the shorter woman nodded toward a dark wooden drawer set into the counter along the west side of the room. She and Max kept their medication there, for ease of access, so Chloe had little trouble discerning what the girl meant as the sound of water hitting the bottom and sides of the pot did little to mask the silence in the room. Chloe paused halfway to the drawer to shoot a look around the room. An old rag sat toward one edge of the kitchen table. At some point Max had removed all signs of Chloe’s greasy, oily handprints from the table. Chloe considered apologizing, concerned that Max might be angry about  _ this  _ and not other things before she saw that the brunette had a very small but, no less present, smile on her face.  _ Okay, okay, that’s good right?  _ Actually, it made almost no fucking sense to Chloe, but she turned away and pulled the drawer in question open. 

 

“Have you taken yours?” Chloe asked as she popped open the bottle of fluoxetine and then turned. She poured a pill out into her hand, leaning back against the counter. Max’s response was a brief nod. The brunette lifted the pot out of the sink and before she could turn off the water, Chloe tossed the pill into her mouth, cupped her hands beneath the cool stream of water and washed it down. Bitter as it was, it was supposed to help her maintain her mood and appetite and keep the depression at bay, keep it from getting so bad that all she had to rely on was her anger again. She knew better, now, than she had a couple of years ago. She knew that going through life angry was ultimately self-destructive. Max had played a role in her learning that but she had also done plenty of damage to herself and her life as a result of fueling herself off of rage alone. The tense relationship with her mother that characterized the last years of the woman’s life still hurt to think about. “And what are we up to?” 

 

“I figure,” Max started, and Chloe paid close attention to her voice to try to get a measure of her mood and mental state, “I’ll make dinner tonight.” Chloe sighed in relief as she realized that the admittedly confusing sense of well being about the girl went deeper than a smile plastered on her face. It sounded out, proudly, in both the tone and volume of her voice. For whatever reason, their conversation with Nic Silver had left Chloe upset and angry and Max - what, hopeful?  _ She really thinks there’s some kind of cure all waiting back there. It’s not going to be like that. It’s just going to hurt. A lot.  _ Chloe swallowed again, though this time it was not to keep down a bitter pill, but a bitter comment. 

 

“Vanessa never seems too sure about letting us cook,” Chloe said, instead, trying to earn a smile from Max. She received a chuckle instead. Either Max was in a good mood or was trying to convince Chloe she was, either way overthinking it was going to just cause more problems. If she was right and going back to Arcadia Bay meant trouble, then she had a feeling they would find out soon enough. The man with the shaggy hair had seemed to be chomping at the bits to get any little scrap of information about the town. “Sure that won’t put her in a bad mood?” 

 

“Nah,” Max told her. “At least, I don’t  _ think  _ so.” The girl turned around a little more quickly than Chloe expected her to after setting the pot on the stove. “I’m gonna do my best to get them in a good mood, then when you get home tell them we’re going on a trip.”  _ Of course, butter them up a bit.  _ She turned away, herself, to cap her pill bottle and toss it back into the drawer. The brunette caught Chloe off guard, though, because she was still staring intently at Chloe when she turned back. Her eyes were searching, again, but for what Chloe did not know. This was one of those times she thought she might need to ask, but also one of those times it sounded stupid to do so. For a moment they stayed paused like this and then Max gestured toward a package of hamburger on the counter. Chloe smiled, crookedly as she approached Max, brushing softly against her as she dug a baking pan out from beneath the oven. Max’s response was to run a hand along Chloe’s shoulder, up the back of her neck and then remove it quickly. To anyone who did not know them, maybe the caress would have seemed tentative, but it wasn’t. Not really. It was the equivalent of a peck on the cheek, or a quick, ‘I love you.’ It was a transference of feelings of care, appreciation, worry all done in a matter of a second. 

 

Chloe felt a little better as she sat the pan down on the counter, spread a bit of garlic salt, pepper and onion powder across it and then put it aside. The hamburger she dumped into a very large bowl and started to mix up with more of these same spices. Max did not speak again as she turned on the burner and started the water boiling. After spicing the batch to what she thought would be a decent taste, Chloe began to roll meatballs in similar silence. If she was going to spend all night preparing dinner for people, she might as well help with Max’s efforts to do the same.  _ Call it a warm up.  _ Inevitably, as she performed the rather monotonous task of rolling a meatball, setting it out on the pan and repeating the process, her thoughts strayed. 

 

_ Where does she even want to go when we get there? Last I heard, it was just rubble and shit. A couple of the buildings by the shore are still kind of there, but the diner went to shit and burnt down. I can’t think of a reason to do this.  _ Chloe sat down her third meatball and looked over her shoulder at Max, who was now staring through the window above the sink out into the fading dreary, overcast afternoon.  _ What could she want to see? Blackwell? Why would she want to see the place all busted up?  _  Chloe could safely assume that some roads had been cleared for emergency vehicles after the storm first happened, but that had been a long time ago. Time, weather and people screwing around in the ruins had probably made some roads unsafe to drive down. Were they going to be stupid enough to go  _ walking  _ around Arcadia Bay? It would be colder than shit.  _ Maybe,  _ she told herself,  _ this is something Max really thinks she needs to do and you can stop being a whiny bitch long enough to help her out.  _

 

“Max?” Chloe started, her voice hesitant. An apology was on the tip of her tongue, both for how she had reacted to the whole thing and for the thoughts rushing around her head, thoughts she knew that Max had no way of knowing, but which Chloe could not help but feel guilty for, anyway. When Max did not immediately respond, Chloe shifted herself at the counter so that she could see the baking sheet beside her and her girlfriend at the same time and kept rolling. Max was focused on the task of getting the oven preheating, taking her time to get the dial just right even though Chloe was fairly certain that being off by a degree or two wouldn’t hurt anything. Max was just funny about that sort of thing, sometimes. Chloe turned back away. The idea that maybe Max needed time to think and that was why she was being so quiet had occurred to her, and Chloe was not looking to be pushy. She had done enough pushing during their conversation with Nic, though that had been an attempt to push the man away from them pretty quickly. 

 

Long before Chloe could get impatient and turn back around she heard four soft footsteps and then felt arms wrap about her midriff, hands clenching in the front. Chloe slowed slightly as she felt the woman’s cheek press into her back, just between her shoulder blades. It took all of her effort not to let a wave of tension emit from the point of contact, out through her body. She had no idea why Max had first started to do  _ that,  _ but they had quickly realized that this was an incredibly sensitive spot for Chloe, and now it seemed that Max took advantage of that fact fairly often. Chloe did not try to hide the hitch in her breath, or the way she shivered at the contact. She continued to roll meatballs for the dinner, just a bit more carefully so no elbow could come back and strike the woman behind her. This, Chloe took as acknowledgement that she had just called out for Max. Chloe smiled to herself, and instead of the apology, she spoke with as much care and passion as she could.

 

“Are you absolutely sure that you want to - that you  _ can  _ go back to Arcadia Bay?” The warm arms around her stomach did not move. The face pressed against that spot between her shoulders did not move. The steady movement of Max’s chest that indicated that her lungs drew breath did not slow. Chloe was not sure why that made what felt like some malformed sob escape her but she held onto the sensation, the jumble of emotions that popped up alongside it and waited for Max to be able to speak. Their mutual patience with one another was what kept them together and she did not just mean that in the way of keeping their relationship stable. It was that patience that held them together, a bond which kept Chloe from snapping or Max from making snap judgments, both things that would end with either of them curled up in their beds, afraid of each other, afraid of themselves, afraid of the world around them. In that moment, Chloe knew that if it held even a bit of hope to bring Max closure, she would do whatever it took, up to and including walking the ruined streets of Arcadia Bay for a couple of days, 

 

“I’m sure,” Max insisted, “if you are.” She did not grow more quiet at the this last. Instead, the question, the care inherent in it was louder than the first part, more demanding of Chloe’s attention and thought. “I think it could be good for me, at least and I hope it will for you, too.” Chloe was still dubious that this would do anything but upset the both of them, but she nodded. “You’ve been doing so well lately. Your nightmares are getting less frequent and we almost never end up sharing them anymore.” Max did not add the last thought in, but Chloe thought she could imagine the brunette thinking it: no one had seen Not Rachel in a long time, either. The ghost of an image of Rachel Amber had stalked Chloe and the Caulfields around the neighborhood, throwing rocks at cars and making threats during Chloe’s first couple of months in Seattle, when Max was still in long-term treatment. Chloe had not been able to explain to the Caulfields who this girl was, instead forced to lie as she had struggled to come to terms with the idea that Max’s hallucinations had been her own fault, as much as Max’s.  _ She tried to tell me she would’ve lost it anyway, and maybe she would have. We were both so stressed out. I just hate the idea that  _ I  _ did this.  _

 

“Rachel might be gone,” Chloe muttered, “but we did both see Victoria last month.” Chloe was not sure what to make of this whole ‘power’ business. What she did know was that it complicated life. It made everything, including sleep, more delicate. She still struggled with the idea that the 

 

“We did,” Max agreed without moving her head from where it was buried or even changing the encouraging tone of her voice. “But you’d just met Mrs. Chase - and she looks  _ so much  _ like her. Anyone would think about Victoria looking at her.”  Chloe sighed. The idea that shoving the specter of Victoria Chase in both of their faces had not upset Max was relieving, but nothing could beat the realization she had had that day that as she and Max stood hand in hand in the Chase Space, with the owner on the other side of the room, that only the two of them could see the ghost of Victoria Chase staring with eyes the size of saucers up at one of the photos hung on the wall, one of her own. It seemed as if Victoria had been destined to gain some local popularity posthumuously.  _ Destiny, or nepotism.  _

 

“Alright,” Chloe replied, sighing as she placed down yet another meatball and started on the next. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am getting better. Maybe Arcadia Bay will help. I’m just afraid of the nightmares.” Bringing nightmares of the storm back to Seattle, again, would not be something that Chloe would be able to help but feel guilty about. The dreams had apparently disturbed Ryan and Vanessa to such a degree that they had taken a ‘weekend holiday’ just to try to get them out of their heads, the first time. 

 

“I usually am right,” Max told her, pulling back finally and sounding a little offended, as if Chloe should have known that to begin with. Chloe grinned at the bowl of meat in front of her and did not turn to let Max know immediately that she had pulled that smile from Chloe. “Anyway, I meant what I told that guy. I _want_ to see Arcadia Bay. The people at that hospital made me doubt _everything,_ for _weeks._ _Everything._ Besides, it’s like I said. If he wants the story, he’ll have to see it to really understand.” Chloe remembered just how screwed up Max had been even after Chloe telling her about how she thought she was causing Rachel to show up, how she was giving people nightmares. A lot of conflicting, confusing thoughts and impulses remained in Max’s head even now, she knew, but at least when the brunette looked at her, it was with love in her eyes and not fear. For a time, Max had questioned whether Chloe was truly with her because she cared for her, or if it had all been guilt, or some sense of duty or worse, some long term plot to make _Max_ feel bad. Either the doctors in that place had done a number on Max or all of that time away from Chloe had resulted in Max disappearing into her own head and inventing some pretty ugly fears for herself to struggle with. Either way, Chloe was happy at the idea of quieting even the last clingers on of those paranoias, of those doubts. 

 

“I guess I wonder why you want to tell the story. Why would you want to tell it to anyone? It’s… it’s so crazy sounding they’ll never believe us. They’ll just think we’re lying or sick.” On that point, Chloe remained firm. There was no way in hell that anyone was going to believe that Max could time travel even though Chloe had seen her do it. Then there was the fact that it might paint Max as some kind of monster who had chosen Chloe over an entire town, even if it had  _ not  _ been that simple, even if Max was not a monster, even if she told Chloe that she still dreamed about their faces at the moments of their deaths. Max did not return to burying her face in Chloe’s back, nor did she release Chloe but she also did not answer immediately. Chloe continued rounding out the meatballs, noting that the pan was getting full and the bowl with the untouched meat empty. The oven was probably nearly done preheating, by that point. 

 

“I don’t know,” Max finally admitted. “Maybe it’s time it finally gets out there or - or maybe it’s Nic.” Chloe tilted her head and glanced back at the brunette for the first time in what felt like might have been several minutes. “It’s just-” she started and then stopped, looking a little confused. Her next statement came out like a question, though whether she was looking for agreement, confirmation or just unsure about her wording, Chloe did not know. She did not try to theorize. “Something about him looked like someone who had seen things that they couldn’t unsee. Something about him was like looking into a mirror.”  _ Was it?  _ To Chloe it had been kind of what she imagined a prey animal to feel when a predator rounded a corner all of the sudden but had not yet seen them. It wasn’t that he struck her as inherently threatening, it was just that he represented a kind of exposure and a kind of danger they had been doing their best to avoid since they were ambushed outside of the Caulfields’ home after they had first shown up. 

 

“The guy’s… disconcerting,” Chloe told her. “Like, it’s like he’s kind of inconsistent. Like he means everything he says and all the words sound right and they  _ feel  _ right, but they also feel wrong? Not like he’s lying, but like he’s just wrong.” She pounded a meatball into shape a little more roughly than she intended and the poor, lumpen little thing settled onto the sheet to her right.  _ Almost done.  _ “It’s like if you’re having a really deep talk with someone and they say something just… wrong. Like, they really think they’re right but they’re just not and it’s jarring and weird.” As Chloe said all of this she realized she was having the thoughts out loud for the first time. “I don’t know how else to say it.” 

 

“I’m with you that I’m uncertain about him, but - this just seems like the right choice.” Chloe sighed as she placed yet another meatball down. There was enough in the bowl for maybe two more. Part of Chloe hoped she could have some leftovers of this the next morning. Spaghetti for breakfast was  _ not  _ weird, no matter what anyone told her. Chloe just knew she was going to have to bend. Max spoke as if the trip was a guarantee, meaning for some reason or another she knew they were going. Whether that meant that she would be going to Arcadia Bay with or without Nic or that she was sure he was going to agree, Chloe didn’t care. It was effectively the same thing as far as  _ she  _ was concerned. 

 

“Okay, I’m with you, but there are two conditions.” This time, Chloe did turn around fully, which forced Max to release her. There was something a little bit heartbreaking about the warmth of those arms vanishing from around her midriff, but she did not dwell on it for too long. “First, we spend pretty much all of our free time between now and then figuring out who this guy is. Google, reddit, twitter, all that shit -  _ and  _ listen to as much of the podcast as we can before Friday. If this guy’s some kind of secret freak or pervert or some shit, I’d like a warning ahead of time.” Chloe did not think that this was going to be the case. Even a few months back Steph probably would not have pointed her toward someone who was ultimately any kind of major asshole.  _ I really should have listened to more, checked it out closer.  _ Chloe had honestly dismissed the suggestion as Steph’s blooming love affair with the occult. Steph had always been kind of nerdy and when Chloe reconnected with her shortly after almost losing Max, she had found Steph not too terribly changed by time on that front. Their friendship this time was different than it had been when they were in school together: cooler, more distant but nonetheless there and something that Chloe had relied upon. One thing that became clear pretty early on was that Steph was one of those people who had become obsessed with Arcadia Bay and finding an answer - any answer for it. 

 

“The podcast was behind the times, he said, so there may be more about him we don’t know.” 

 

“There’s going to be plenty about him we don’t know,” Chloe grumped. “No one puts everything on a podcast.” She slapped the last meatball down on the sheet beside her and shuffled over to the sink with the bowl to wash her hands. Over the stream of water, as Max kindly tapped the hand soap pump, allowing her not to dirty it up, Chloe decided it was about time to risk pissing Max off once and for all. “Last condition: I’m bringing the gun. If I can do that, I’m fine to go, and I’ll decide what, if  _ anything  _ he gets to know about Rachel when the time comes.” Max’s look of relief started to fade almost immediately. Chloe did not know if it was at the mention of the blonde thespian or of the gun. They had acquired it under less than ideal circumstances through methods that she was fairly certain had been highly illegal.  _ Thank you, Mark.  _ After a moment Max swallowed and nodded. Chloe shut off the water and shook her hands dry over the sink. 

 

“I don’t think you’ll need a gun. Whatever else he is, Nic doesn’t seem dangerous.” 

 

“Maybe not,” Chloe told her, mentally making a note to reach out to Blair and her boys. “But he said something about bringing a friend with him and you agreed, remember? We don’t know anything about this guy  _ or  _ his friends. Plus, for all we know Arcadia Bay is dangerous, too.” That was something she had never really thought of. Who knew what kind of people or animals might be squatting among the remains. “Imagine, there could be some kind of nutso redneck survivalist type with a shotgun or something out there waiting to just drop anyone who came near. I’m not looking for someone like that to get the drop on us. When I die, it’s not going to be to someone with a Duck Dynasty beard, telling me ‘you’s gots a purty mouth’.” Max rolled her eyes and sighed audibly at Chloe’s antics and then took the tray full of meatballs away. 

 

“Grab the garlic bread from the freezer, will you?” she finally asked Chloe, which Chloe took to be an agreement with her conditions. While the brunette threw the meatballs into the oven, Chloe did as she was bade and brought the simple, easy side dish out of the freezer, leaving Max to arrange them on a different sheet. Chloe smiled at Max’s back as the photographer did just that. “What’s it gonna take to get the truck running again?” At Max’s gesture, Chloe turned on the burner beneath the pot. 

 

“Brief run into town for some fluids and a couple spark plugs,” she answered offhandedly. “We can do that in the morning.” Then Chloe started and turned to look at the time. It was nearly five. “Oh, fuck, right. I’m not taking the truck out tonight so I called Jordan for a ride. I think he’ll be by in about forty minutes.” To Chloe’s immense confusion, the brunette turned, frowning and crossed her arms. Was this going to turn into some kind of thing where she revealed she was jealous of Jordan or something? Because that would be absurd. The redhead in question was as queer as a three dollar bill, the same as them, but Chloe was fairly certain he was actually flat out homosexual. Instead of uncharacteristic jealousy, when the brunette talked, her voice was laced with implication and innuendo. 

 

“Forty minutes isn’t much time.” The photographer covered the distance between them, her eyebrows wiggling once suggestively as she lifted her hands to rest on either of Chloe’s shoulders. Chloe grinned back at Max, but decided to playfully chide her a bit. 

 

“You really shouldn’t let your mind wander when there’s something on the burner or in the oven,” Chloe told her, trying to sound stern and disapproving instead of slightly eager as their lips met. What started as soft warmth became a harder, insistent kiss, one which invited the passage of tongue from one mouth to another, a small chuckle into her partner’s lips, and wandering hands. The playful admonishment was almost forgotten when she felt the fingertips of Max’s right hand trail up along her spine, toward that spot between her shoulder blades. Its importance certainly seemed significantly reduced against the backdrop of the small fire starting between them. About the third time she felt Max’s lips press against her throat, Chloe was forced to ease herself back. “Forty minutes  _ isn’t  _ enough time,” was all she said by way of explanation. It was absolutely  _ no  _ fair of Max to even consider getting Chloe worked up when she had to leave in such a short time, yet Chloe could not stop laughing as they untangled themselves, as Max’s eyes almost looked to brighten just slightly. For all that things weren’t perfect, they had come far from their shitty little apartment in LA, from lying to one another. 

 

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Max told her, leaning in close again but instead of kissing her, simply pressing her forehead into Chloe’s. 

 

“I got too angry earlier,” she whispered to the girl. “I think I have a thing against journalists.” She had not forgotten the constant ringing of their phones for the first three months after Arcadia Bay was destroyed, which culminated in them backing the photos on those phones up onto Max’s laptop and then hurling them out of the window. It was only a shame that by that point, no one had been camping out in front of the house to get hit in the skull with them. 

 

“I know,” Max assured her, looking up at Chloe through fairly thick, straight lashes. “I know.” 

 

“While you’re knowing things, you should know you’re mine tonight,” Chloe muttered, their lips only inches apart.

 

“You promise?” 

 

Chloe promised. 

 

Max didn’t feel too terribly guilty about the fact that Chloe had only been home a couple of minutes when Max reached over, squeezed her hand and made the first gesture with her chin toward her (hopefully) unsuspecting parents. The taller woman immediately shook her head no, as if it was still too early, which Max figured might be true considering that her mother's and father's eyes were still glued to the screen. Max yielded to her judgment on this and hoped that she at least had time to relax in the interim. Chloe had not only helped her in preparing a meal for her mother and father, she had also helped cook a meal for anywhere between thirty and forty people right after. Despite that fact, she did not look entirely too beat up. In fact, she had come home smiling. Chloe found a sense of community with that group and Max could understand that. Sometimes, when she helped out there, she felt useful and that was nice. Most of the time, Max just left the place feeling drained as if the sheer number of people had been overwhelming to even look at, much less help cook for.  _ Though, I guess I'm glad I was there that day with that kid, Andy. Even if Chloe was the one he needed. _

 

That day, she had been taking a break when she stumbled across a younger guy who was upset and could not be calmed by his friends. Max had swallowed a hundred voices telling her this wasn't her business and managed to ascertain from him that his father, who had consistently deadnamed and misgendered him for a couple of years, had died very suddenly the day before and he had been conflicted. Max, who really was not able to help deal with family conflict, had been able to sit and listen and help him to realize that what was happening was something she  _ was  _ familiar with. He had been overwhelmed, unable to process from the sheer amount of shit being thrown at him. Max had taken over Chloe's role in prep and shoved the woman at Andy, because if there was anyone Max knew who had experience with being conflicted about their family, it was her. Chloe had been the one to really help the kid, but stilll, in being able to help him calm down, Max had learned a thing or two. She had been working for Mrs. Chase in the Chase Space gallery for months by that point and never once had she felt as useful or productive as she had that evening. Now, Max no longer questioned why Chloe enjoyed working with these people, and today the punk did not look extra tired. There was nothing, then, to stop them from talking to her parents.

 

_ Me _

_ When should we do it? _

 

_ Chloe _

_ Dnt no, not while movie's playing. Ur mom's loving it. _

 

_ Me _

_ I think I'd like it too, but I'm kinda distracted. _

 

_ Chloe _

_ Obv, theres a pretty lady beside you. _

 

_ Me _

_ Gorgeous, more like. But she's always texting when I look over. _

 

Max normally  _ would  _ have been eating the film up. This evening, though, had been a little tense for her ever since dinner. Considering that her parents typically preferred preparing dinner—in part, she suspected, because they had not yet learned to trust that she could cook worth a damn, but come on, who could screw up spaghetti—they had met her having dinner ready with equal parts suspicion and skepticism. Inevitably, a couple of bites into the meal, her father had asked if there was something which they needed to know and her mother had asked her who was dying. Max had shrugged this last off. Her parents could occasionally be tone deaf to serious situations but that came down for the most part to them not having an idea just how serious things were.  _ And besides, whose fault is that?  _ It was not her mother or father's faults that they did not typically know what went on in Max's or Chloe's head.

 

She had just been nervous since then, the kind of knot-in-stomach nerves which had required her to choke down a meal she and Chloe had prepared themselves. There had been nothing wrong with it, but lying to her parents could be an effective appetite killer in and of itself, adding the thought of more lying on top of it, or the idea of seeing Arcadia Bay again when Chloe was so obviously disturbed by it and Max had had to really  _ try  _ to eat. She glanced sideways at Chloe, who was again glancing down at the phone in her lap as if trying to surreptitiously answer her.

 

_ Chloe _

_ Then stop distracting her. We could just call in sick on Friday. Only real option. _

 

_ Me _

_ Are you going to be able to get out of class? It should work for me, btw. Alaina will be pissed, but she wouldn't want me throwing up in the office. _

 

_ Chloe _

_ If I miss class it'll sell the sickness better. Will be OK. Restaurant desperate for workers. Probably can’t do it again a while tho and homework is still pretty easy rn. _

 

_ Me _

_ This should work. _

 

Privately, Max thought she would have to keep working with Chloe to get her onboard with it fully. _ Tonight might help,  _ Max thought, lowering her phone back into her lap and turning back to the television.  _ Not the part where I'm 'hers', I mean, but we could listen to an episode or two of the show together like she wanted. _ She figured that might put Chloe's mind at ease and hers wasn't the only one needing put at ease. Over the next few minutes, the number of looks her mother and father  _ both  _ shot toward Max or Chloe increased fairly dramatically. Max typically responded to them with a small smile or trying to pretend to be caught up in the film, but Chloe was a little less slick: she would try to immediately look away, or look down at her phone as if to avoid confronting them. Inevitably, though, the movie was paused as her mother rose from her seat, knocked dark hair back from her forehead and declared that she needed the bathroom.

 

“I'm gonna go grab a coke,” Chloe added as the woman took off. “Want one, babe?” Max had to admit that she had been relieved when Chloe returned to her silly pet names. There had been a good month long period after Max was allowed to move in with her parents and her lover where Chloe had simply called her 'Max', over and over again. It wasn't that it sounded bad or carried any negative connotations when Chloe used her first name, it was just that it reminded Max more of the start of their relationship and she had not been particularly fond of the idea that they had rewound on that. Max nodded and was about to thank her for the offer when Chloe turned toward her father, “Can I get you a beer, Ryan?” The sound of Max's palm slapping against her own forehead rang clear across the silent living room. Max moved her hand to see her father folding his own in his lap, fixing a disbelieving look on Max, as if ashamed of her for being unable to keep whatever secret she had been trying to keep and then the man turned his head toward Chloe.

 

“Do you think I'm going to  _ need  _ a beer for whatever you two are going to tell us?” Max found it interesting how the two of them grinned at each other, like the cat and mouse laughing because the cat caught onto the mouse's game.  _ The two of them are really cut from the same cloth.  _ For a moment, Max entertained the horrible notion that you truly fell in love with someone just like your parents. To combat that, she laid out the biggest differences between Chloe and her mother and father. She wanted to start with the whole smoking weed thing, but she wasn't stupid. She remembered the smell from her childhood, from nights when her parents and Chloe's sat out in the garage working on the Price family's car or long cookouts behind her place.  _ Okay, but neither of them are particularly artistic and they definitely don't go around tagging things.  _ They  _ were  _ definitely good with cars like Chloe, though, especially her mother. In a different world, Max had this idea of the three of them running some sort of mechanic shop together. Then again, her parents had pretty stable jobs which they were comfortable with, now. 

  
  


When her mother came back in, Max saw the slight quirk of her eyebrows as Chloe set a beer in her father's outstretched hand and one in front of the spot where her mother had just been setting. Max, trying not to match either of her parents' eyes, took the coke Chloe offered her and then, without attempting to disguise it, tugged on the arm of Chloe's shirt until she sat down beside Max and stopped making her want to panic. Slowly, her mother sat down, turned a curious gaze on Chloe and her father and then waited for an explanation.

 

“Chloe thought we needed them,” her father explained before taking a drink of his.

 

“I see,” her mother responded, before popping the tab on her own can and tilting it back. Chloe laughed beside Max, but try as she might to fool them she could not convince Max it was a humorous laugh. The woman was nervous. Really, on this front, Chloe might have had the better measure of things. Max wasn't sure if her parents were going to be particularly friendly with the idea of them going  _ anywhere. _ Still, Max patted Chloe on the knee as the woman sat forward, a little anxiously and opened her own coke. Max knew he mother could be a bit brusque at times, to the point and even a little more intimidating than say, her father was capable of. She also knew that the both of them loved the  _ hell  _ out of Chloe, so Max thought her anxiety a bit on the extreme side. It was, however, starting to spread back to that knot in Max's stomach and make  _ that  _ bigger, so she opened her own drink and took a sip as her mother looked expectantly at both she and Chloe. “Is there something we need to know?” At this, her father stroked his thick beard once and then leaned forward.

 

“Well, I don't see any rings so it's not a surprise engagement and they didn't  _ elope _ while we were gone today – wait.” The man's eyes widened. “Oh god, Max, you didn't get her pregnant did you?” Max snorted into the can at her lips. Chloe's response was to elbow her in the ribs.  _ Right, right, this was my idea and they're  _ my  _ parents so, I get to tell them. Asshole. _

 

“I want to talk to you guys,” she led in, leaning forward herself and cupping the can between her hands. Apparently her tone came off as less serious and more alarmed because Chloe snaked one hand around behind Max and began to rub her back and her parents eached stopped either drinking or looking jokingly at the two of them to wait in silence. She had not intended to sound as nervous as she was. Her father was kind and liked to be laid back but he had been seriously, almost heinously overprotective of the two of them since Arcadia Bay and had started doting on her since they came back to Seattle. It was possible that he was about to flat out try to stop her from going. Her mother was harder to read. She was as likely to suggest that this was a bad time to go due to Max still being early into her job at the Chase Space as she was to say it was a great idea.

 

_ She might ask a ton of questions, too, and poke holes in my shitty cover story. The cover story I haven't come up with. Oh, fuck.  _ Then again, she was also likely to shrug and tell them to have fun. Max knew her parents and the best way to predict their reactions would be to get in their head on a topic but she just had not been able to do that lately. She did not know, for instance, what they thought of her mental state, if they suspected she was still 'fragile.' This had been a concern of hers for some time. _ Good a time as any to find out,  _ Max told herself. Besides, if things went truly, truly badly, Max had an ace up her sleeve.

 

_ A lot could hinge on this,  _ Max thought. It was true. If her parents didn't approve and they went anyway – and they  _ would  _ be going anyway – it might put a strain on their relationship. She wasn't worried that it would result in them kicking her and Chloe out, but there would certainly be tension, maybe arguments. Max could only remember arguing with her parents a few times. Once, about moving away from Arcadia Bay and again about whether she was ready to be 'on her own' after the storm. These two stood out to Max in that they both had been pretty troubling times in her life. She hoped that there would not be another argument today, one that might mark a new time of trouble coming.

 

“I know we've just gotten kind of stable, but it's been a long time – or we've been through a lot, I guess, since we've been stable and alone and had time to really think.” Max looked back and forth between her father's brown eyes and her mother's blue. They probably had an inkling about what she was about to say, but were biding their time before answering or, it seemed, making any kind of judgment calls. “There's a bed and breakfast down south a ways that I really want to go to and I think we've got enough between us for two or three nights. This feels like good timing too.” She was not entirely sure what the look her parents shared between them meant, or the slight quirk of her mother's lips and her father's frown meant. “I mean, we can go down there, come back in a good headspace before Christmas and be able to push through the start of the year, which is probably gonna be a little messy.” In order to sell the idea that this was a simple vacation and so Chloe was entirely on board with it, Max reached over and took the woman's right hand in her own; Chloe's left continued to rub at her back supportively.

 

“The trip shouldn't be bad at all,” Chloe said, surprising Max a bit in the girl's initiative. “Bit of rain maybe, but nothing big.” Another pause came after this, in which her parents shared a longer, harder look with one another and then turned their eyes back on Max. Her mother cleared her throat but did not seem to know what to say as of yet. Max wondered what they would think of Nic showing up at their house and asking questions.  _ I've never seen dad threaten someone before, but he did almost punch out that one guy who wouldn't stop knocking back after we first got away from Arcadia Bay. _

 

“Will there at least be pictures of wherever you're staying? It sounds nice.” The question her mother shot at Max was innocent enough on the surface, but the look on Vanessa Caulfield's face was less 'I hope you enjoy it' and more 'can you prove you're going where you say you are’. Max’s first instinct was to say ‘no’ and come up with some excuse about not feeling into photography right now, so that she didn’t have to come up with photos that had not been clearly taken within the remains of Arcadia Bay. She did not, because she knew the lie would have sounded hollow. Chloe continued to rub her back, more softly than before but somehow more comfortingly, too. 

 

“Maybe,” Max told her. “I-I don't see why not.” Now that was a lie. She damn sure knew why not. They weren't going to some bed and breakfast, but probably some shitty little motel in Edgeton or Bruss, somewhere near the remains of Arcadia Bay. At highway speeds either town was a reasonable distance from Arcadia Bay. There was a moment where Max thought that her lie had been accepted or at least shrugged off until her mother sighed and ran one hand down her face.  _ Busted. _

 

“Max, Chloe,” her mother started, as if about to deliver some bad news.  _ She thinks it's a bad idea. She knows we're lying and thinks we shouldn't go.  _ “I'll have to insist you let us rent you a car.” Beside Max, Chloe looked  _ scandalized. _

 

“The truck just needs some fluids and a spark plug. Max and I can go out and get them in the morning. It'll be running just  _ fine  _ for Friday!” Max watched the bemused look pass between her parents and tried not to blame Chloe for the defensive tone in her voice. Whether it was because she thought they were casting aspersions on 'her baby' or because she felt guilty about accepting anything that cost money from Max's parents, Chloe was being a little silly. Then again, Max felt some loyalty toward the truck too. It had gotten them from Arcadia Bay to Seattle, Seattle to LA and even gotten Chloe back to Seattle again. She squeezed her hand around Chloe's to try to calm her. It wasn't just loyalty to the truck. Part of Max shared the guilt Chloe felt in living there when they could barely afford to contribute enough to make it worth it. Seattle was somewhat expensive and they were both going through rather a lot at the moment.

 

“Coastal Oregon is  _ awfully south _ ,” her father mused as he scratched at his beard, putting a little extra emphasis on 'south' as if to say that Max's nondescript 'a ways south' was not fooling anyone. “Well, I'd feel better if I knew you had a ride that-” the man paused and Max saw him  _ almost  _ look toward Chloe, before he swallowed and said, “a ride that can be replaced quickly by a rental company if it breaks down.” Max knew they knew. It was clear on their faces, hell, to make matters worse, they knew she knew and were still trying to keep the peace. She didn't  _ like  _ lying to her parents, but part of her had been concerned that they would not think she could be trusted to go on that trip and not break again. She did not think she could take going back to her mother and father all but coddling her. The worst part about it all had been that Chloe had participated in a about a month's worth of that coddling.

 

_ Things  _ are  _ different now,  _ Max reflected as she squeezed Chloe's hand and formulated how to respond. Chloe was softer with her in general, though sometimes they could be, if not rougher, more  _ emphatic  _ in other, more carnal situations. Adding in Max's worries about Chloe's apparent abilities and she probably was as concerned for Chloe as Chloe was for her, now. For a long time Max had tried to figure out how Chloe's abilities might have come about, the same way she had been doing her own, but Chloe had confessed, one night not too long after Max came home from the hospital, that she suspected they had been there for years, coming first in the form of really potent dreams. They were now looking into whether lucid dreaming might be something that could help Chloe, but to Max that sounded like a total pain in the ass.

 

“Well?” Vanessa prompted them. Chloe didn't speak, but she did squeeze Max's hand back.

 

“Thanks,” Max replied, trying to smile at her father as if she was just accepting the generous offer and her mind was not going a million miles a minute. Max also tried to ignore the very brief, near-pout that appeared on Chloe's face. Her parents would not hold it against the woman, she loved her truck and so did Max.  _ So much could hinge on this, _ she thought as her parents began to talk with Chloe about how long they would need a car. Max barely managed to reply that they might need it as late as Tuesday and fend off the concerned looks from all three people in the room. She did not know how long this would take, she just wanted to be safe.  _ If Nic goes public with all of this, there's gonna be consequences. If he doesn't believe us, it's a wasted trip for him, but he might also put out there that we're fucking nuts and bring trouble down on us too. If he or his friend are actually dangerous and Chloe has to use that gun... shit, I don't even want to think about it. Good thing you're a fucking time traveler. _

 

“I'll just be a second.” Good thing, indeed. Delaying the others in resuming the movie, Max rose to her feet. It didn't take her long to leave the room and come back with her hands behind her back, to order Chloe to move over to the couch as she brandished William's old camera. She told her parents that she just wanted a photo of her family all together as Chloe settled in between the two of them and tossed an arm around eithers' shoulder, but in the photo William's old camera spat out, Chloe wore a knowing grin. It was a tender grin, but an aware one. She knew damn well that Max had just set a point for rewinding to should something go horribly wrong. It was, though, a photo she also intended to value for the image itself. She had not taken a photo of the three of them together since she and Chloe had been children and now the sight held a little more value, a little more meaning: these were the only important people in her life who still drew breath, people who she would never let something happen to. 

 

That evening, long after Max had finished her shower, after she and Chloe had sat and listened to a couple episodes of the podcast, Tanis, she was dragged to their room and to bed. Max reflected briefly on the differences between her room now and the last time it was truly her room. It went beyond the fact that she was sleeping in a wider bed beside her girlfriend, beyond the fact that her underwear drawer hid weed and a gun or that Chloe's hid a toy that was very much  _ for adults only  _ (and some spare papers). It was more about the fact that the room seemed both _ smaller  _ and more like home than it ever had done when she was younger. Maybe that was because when she was a teenager she had been missing Chloe and Arcadia Bay all along without realizing just how much. A few moments later, there was no time for reflection. There were only sheets and pillows, and Chloe. She was ready to get lost in all three of those for the night because there was plenty of time coming to reflect on the past: she did not have to be a time traveler to know that Nic Silver was going to accept her offer and that at least the three of them were going to go to Arcadia Bay.

  
  



	3. The Details

Disclaimer: I own the rights to more or less nothing seen here, nothing from Life is Strange or the Public Radio Alliance or Pacific Northwest Stories. This is entirely a fanbased work for personal enjoyment. 

* * *

 

# Chapter Three: The Details

 

Part of the thing that he really appreciated about the Public Radio Alliance intern who dedicated time to Tanis, Nic thought as he leaned back in his computer chair and listened to the absolute silence of his 'office', was that Sarah did not take offense when he was not in the mood to function. She did not seem to get uneasy or concerned when he locked the door to his office/studio combo and simply sat in peace with the smell of coffee and whatever sounds - or lack thereof – he chose to play. At this point, Nic's sound du jour was the insistent ringing of a skype call trying to connect. On his screen, his desktop recording software paused, patiently waiting out the relative silence while they both stalled for the person on the other end of the call to pick up. Right now, Nic's mind was running wild and, well, functioning outside of the scope of the Tanis and Arcadia Bay investigations sounded pretty out there. Nic, as it turned out, did not know what to do. He knew he had only been given 72 hours to decide whether or not to go out to an abandoned town in Oregon with two strangers and he had already 'slept on it' but he simply did not think he had an alternative but to say yes if he wanted the story. Nic did not enjoy having no choice.

To him, the idea of 'no choice' was what had led to him walking into the unsafe Cult-of-Tanis situation during his second interaction with the group. Perhaps it was the memory of that moment when he had first realized that his tea did not just taste a little off – it was a little off, but whatever the cause was, Nic did not enjoy feeling cornered. It wasn't that he particularly suspected either Chloe Price or Max Caulfield of being likely to drug him for the purpose of luring him back to their Tanis-related cult (though, he had to admit they were about the same age as the girls from that group) it was just that idea of being at their—or anyone's—mercy that he did not care for. And if I convince them to take me out to where they went into the woods as kids, I might still find a Tanis link. Perhaps the most concerning part of that was the evidence suggesting that The Blur was not limited to the Breach anymore. He had experienced it in places that seemed connected to Tanis, places that Tanis was said to have been. If this was related to Tanis and he did go out there with these two strangers, then the Blur hitting significantly at all struck him as too great a risk. No, he was not a fan of that idea at all. Nic really only did see one good option. If he had to take them up on their offer to get his story, then he was not going to go out there alone. Note to self, call Geoff. The low, persistent ringing came to a close, one or two steady clicks passed through his headphones immediately after and then, mercifully, he heard the voice he had been looking for.

“MK,” she said, by way of greeting. Nic nodded to himself. Short, not so sweet, but to the point. That was Meerkatnip for you. He took a moment to process her voice, to see if there were any particular tones evident in it that he should be worried about, or even excited about. He detected no sign of either a buildup to a promising exposition or undue stress. It was, most likely, a normal day for the brunette, whatever a normal day constituted for an 'information specialist' who spent her time running programs and scripts meant to dig up content on a part of the internet that was not typically listed or even accessible under normal conditions. “You alive over there, buddy or is this some 'ghost-using-skype shit?'”

“I'm alive,” Nic finally answered after clearing his throat. He did not especially find the concept of being a ghost particularly funny at the moment but if he did end up dead in the pursuit of this podcast he was damned sure going to haunt the internet for a couple hundred years. “How are you doing?” There was a slightly longer than necessary pause. He thought he heard the click of a mouse or the tap of a key but he could not be sure. MK was usually very successful at keeping that kind of noise down and ended up leaving very little work for him or the sound editors who occasionally helped out on Tanis. He hated to characterize it as hesitation: every time in the past that he had assumed she was hesitating for one reason or another, he had been proven wrong, typically in a way that ended up pissing her off. Eventually, MK answered him in a slightly clearer, more put together voice.

“I'm fine, are you recording this?” The only downside to MK never bothering to specify ahead of time whether she wanted to talk business or pleasure was that their entire friendship now operated that way, whether he was contacting her or not. With others, like Alex (oh, shit I better call her) or Carly, Nic had no problem balancing the personas of friend and colleague. With MK, she just developed the slightest bit more of an edge when they got down to Tanis business. Sometimes, he worried that she flat out would not be doing the work if she did not need the money, though he did not know what she needed the money for: he had been to her home once already and knew it was nothing to sneeze at. In fact, it was enough to give the Caulfields a run for their money as far as nice places to live in and around Seattle. I don't think she's renting it, she said she owned it outright.

“Not yet,” he promised her, solemnly. “Unless there's a reason I should?”

“Not yet,” she responded, voice coming a little deep through his headphones as she mimicked his serious tone of voice in a way that he took to mean that he should relax. Things had been slightly different between them for a few weeks now and he knew, or rather he suspected, that the majority of the difference was buried somewhere deep in his own head. It was something that, ultimately, he was going to have to dig out of there. MK’s voice returned to normal. “I had a really long night, so I’m knocking out a late breakfast.”

“Are you in town?” he asked. In retrospect, he was eager to get the story of his interview with the Arcadia Bay survivors out in the open and hear someone’s thoughts about it. MK was as close to a trusted colleague as he had in Seattle, outside of Sarah and he wasn’t sure it was entirely proper for him to bring her into the true depths of the weirdness of Tanis, any more than she already was. She had a child and a fiance at home. He and MK were single, childless and their responsibilities were mostly professional in nature. At least, he was pretty sure all of that could be said about MK. She didn’t strike him as the type to have a kid out there, somewhere. It wasn’t that he didn’t think she was capable of maternal instincts but she had expressed some distaste at or discomfort with the idea of having children before. Nic wasn’t sure he blamed her. Once upon a time he had had in mind the idea that he might one day have children. Now, it no longer appealed. It no longer sounded reasonable or even pleasant.

“I might be, why?” Nic shrugged off the cryptic response. It was not at all an unusual one to that kind of question. MK did not like to be frank or clear about where she was and when she was going to be there. He would call her paranoid if it weren’t for the fact that during the course of his investigation she had had her home ‘compromised’ and had been followed several times, not to mention flat out abducted once. Though, come to think of it, Nic had never gotten a straight answer on the nature of the abduction and she hadn’t even made it particularly clear whether that was related to her work for him or to one of the countless other endeavors she was into. He had long since learned not to ask about her other work. At best she shrugged the question off and at worst she became concerned.

“I wanted to know if you wanted to meet up to go over the interview with Chloe Price and Max Caulfield,” he told her, mostly to reassure her that there were no other concerns or ulterior motives at work. He certainly had no more work to add to her already heavy load. The thing Nic was sure about when it came to MK was that she almost never exaggerated. If she had told him that she had had a very long night, then something was at play in the rest of her life, something which was either causing her stress or excitement. Nic did not intend to pick at her to figure out which, but he hoped that if she had to be dealing with sleeplessness, something he knew all too damned well, it was at least caused by something exciting, promising.

“Even if I was in town, I probably wouldn’t want to meet up.” Nic shifted in his seat. He reminded himself, as he often did, that there was no negative intent in those words. MK just typically spoke very bluntly and trusted that people either understood the intent behind her words or that if they couldn’t handle it, they would move on. She often did not want to meet up when it came to Tanis related things, unless it was absolutely necessary or she was genuinely worried about him. Plus, if she was truly busy, what she might be trying to convey here was that she didn’t want to interrupt her work with a trip out of the house or wherever it was she did her work from. Nic couldn’t judge her for that; after all, the door to his office was still locked and he had not left it for lunch, though he had opened it long enough to accept a cup of coffee, thank Sarah profusely and compensate her for the drink. It was one thing to ask for a cup of joe in a fit of desperation while staring at files so thick they made his eyes cross, it was another for the woman to think of him on her way back from lunch. Is it a bad sign that Sarah’s basically keeping me together right now?

“Oh, alright.” Nic glanced up at his screen and checked that the audio files were still queued up in his favored media player from when he had been reviewing them. Nic became aware he had paused a bit too long after the sudden dismissal and rather than risk her asking if he was still there, in that slightly impatient tone she was capable of, he spoke. “Well, would you like me to play the interview for you or want a summary?” He was pretty certain that he knew the answer to the question without asking but it came pretty quickly and succinctly, so there was, at least, no being held in suspense.

“Summarize, I don’t really have all day to listen.” Nic did more than summarize the interview, he went into the entire experience from entering this nice suburb and finding the two women people had been clattering to talk to for a couple of years under a rusty old truck all the way to their claims that neither he nor his listeners would believe a thing they had to say. Nic covered in fair detail the amount of anger he seemed to elicit in Chloe Price and her begrudging apology as she showed him the door. All in all, it probably only took a few minutes of MK’s time, but when he grew quiet again he thought he heard a sigh. “That about it?” she asked him.

“That’s about it,” he told her, a little relieved to hear that ‘let’s get down to business’ tone settling back into her voice. At the very least it meant she was not annoyed by the length of time he took recounting the interview. It had to have been something of a long recollection, because when he lifted his coffee to take a drink it had cooled very noticeably. If anything, they probably would have been done already had he just played the recording of the interview for her. He wasn’t sure that summarizing had done her any favors on the time constraint front, but she did not seem irritated at all. “I’ll probably record the rest of the call.”

“Fine by me.” It only took a couple of clicks for the software to start pulling audio from his desktop.

“So, what do you think?” he asked her, looking for any general feedback on the entire situation, considering it had kept him in something of a mental knot all morning. Honestly, most of his difficulties with the situation were circular and all came back to whether or not he was taking a stupid risk. Unfortunately, MK only sometimes really spotted the stupid risks when they were coming. Still, if she called it out, he wanted to take notice. The last time he had gone with people he did not entirely trust out somewhere away from civilization, he had disappeared for a week and all of his attempts to recover memories of that week turned up the most bizarre ramblings and recollections of places and things which sounded, if not impossible, then at least highly improbable. When did I start questioning chasing down answers?

“I want to know what you think of Chloe’s hostility, actually.” Nic pulled a face that he knew she couldn’t see.

“I think part of it is hostility, which I kind of get considering what she and her partner have gone through but the other part - “

“The other part?” she prompted, as if impatient. Some people, Nic thought, might have called her tone hostile. They would have been wrong, but surely she could see that blunt assertive words could hardly be called inherently hostile.

“The other part is, well, I think she just reminds me of you, actually.”

“That’s pretty high praise,” MK told him, affecting a momentary regal tone before her voice dropped and flatly, bluntly she added, “but she’s actually nothing like me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” When no immediate clarification came, he began to suspect that this statement meant something more to her than it did him. I think I hit a nerve. Nic decided that the best way to reply to this situation would be to change the subject, and fast if he wanted the conversation not to fall apart there and then. He had better tell her what was going on in his head and get it over with. If anything, she was as likely to tell him he was over worrying as anything else.

“I’ve got about a day and a half to answer them about going to out to Arcadia Bay with them and - “

“What used to be Arcadia Bay. You’re not going to some seaside resort. I’ve seen satellite pictures, I mean good ones. That place is a disaster zone and everything is trashed. Beyond trashed.” It was important to be factually correct about things like calling something a city or calling it the remains of a city, but judging by the last part, this was more about drilling into his head a need for caution that was entirely unnecessary. He was already conflicted enough on the idea. Why? You know in the end you’re going to do it. Why pretend otherwise? Whether that particular thought was true or not, it was more that he was hoping for someone to say, ‘you’re not doomed’. Or, more precisely, he was hoping to be told that the nagging voice in the back of his head which told him that he was going to disappear again if he wandered off with strangers and maybe not come back this time, was wrong. He wasn’t sure when he’d become so insecure about this sort of thing, but it was there and he thought that he had better confront it before he found himself in a situation that might or might not actually be dangerous.

“Right,” he agreed. “I’m thinking I’ll ask Geoff to come with me.”

“Well,” she started, and then paused. After several seconds she continued in a quieter tone, “I’d rather you not go alone, at least.” For as hard headed or blunt as she was capable of being, this tone of voice was not all too uncommon. It was one of the ways she showed she cared, something she sometimes pulled out as if to make sure he knew that things were never as simple as they seemed, as if his entire life was not that lesson. Nic did not know what to make of it in the end, except that it served to remind him again that their relationship went beyond freelance hacker (sorry, ‘information specialist’) and client. At the very least, she might consider herself his friend, but he did not know if it was safe to broach that kind of subject with her, much less any other he might have on his mind. Well, with all the other madness in his life, he really did not think he should be that surprised that a part of him was twisted up over MK. “In the end, the question is if you think these two are trustworthy.”

“Trustworthy?” he asked. He had not exactly framed it like that before, not even to himself.

“Trustworthy?” I really hadn’t thought of it that way. I mean, I guess I had but never in those exact words.

“Yeah, I mean, they’ve acted pretty flaky so far.” Her concerns were not exactly unfounded. Chloe Price had gone from angry and almost threatening to apologetic and patronizing. Max Caulfield had gone from this quiet, almost shy individual to someone who spoke as if she knew a secret that I would kill to know. Still, at no point did I get the feeling that these two were especially malicious.

“I don’t get the feeling that they want to hurt me, though, Chloe did kind of look like she was going to throw a wrench at me at one point.” I was very, very glad she had not.

“Yeah, but thinking someone isn’t going to hurt you isn’t the same thing as trusting them.” Again, her logic was impeccable.

“I think the little bit that they’ve told me is the truth and I’d like to hear the rest of it. They really believe they’ve experienced something weird, something that goes beyond what they told the reporters and beyond the reports we heard out of Arcadia Bay. I want to find out what and then I want to try to talk them into taking me out into the woods, to the place they used to go as kids. If I go to Arcadia Bay - to what used to be Arcadia Bay - and listen to them, they might take me out there.”

“And what do you expect to hear them say that they haven’t already?”

“I guess I expect a first hand account of all the strange things they saw leading up to the storm, the odd astronomical and ecological phenomena.” I didn’t put it into words because I felt morbid saying so, but I also hoped to receive an eyewitness report of the storm itself. You have to understand, it isn’t that I wanted to imagine a storm so powerful it could level a town and kill all of its inhabitants - almost all of its inhabitants. This storm had required the adoption of a new tier of measurement in the formation of and effects of tornadoes and even still it was hard to conceive of that kind of killing power. It was not a normal storm and I was not stupid enough to think so.

“Okay, but you just said you think there is more to it than that, because they said so.”

“Yes, but I don’t know what it might be.”

“Nic,” MK started and this time he heard the familiar tone, the almost begrudging, ‘I’m asking you this because I give a shit’ tone settle back into place. It was rarest when she was being recorded and that was probably by design, so he shut his mouth and paid attention. Instead of giving him some warning against going diving through the ruins of a town flattened by a tornado or against trusting two women he had just met, she asked a question that he had been avoiding confronting directly since the idea had first been proposed to him that Arcadia Bay might have something to do with Tanis. It was a simple question but he shivered in his seat. “What do you think would happen if Tanis appeared in the middle of a city?”

“Do - do you mean the cabin?”

“Fine, sure, yeah. The Cabin. The Breach. Eld Fen. Whatever you wanna call it, it moves around right? What if it did go that far south, what if it popped up in the middle of this little nowhere town on the coast?” The implications were actually fairly disturbing.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I’ve never heard of a Tanis story like that, before.” That was true. There were all kinds of myths about something out in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, something dangerous and old, places or beings of great power that seemed to touch on Tanis in some way or another. He could not recall a story about one of these things appearing in the middle of a city and destroying it, but of course many of them predated the modern idea of a city. Tanis, or a fear of something that sounded just like it, was ancient and pervasive.

“Didn’t Professor Adams talk about Tanis as a sort of stand in for Atlantis or one of those other ancient destroyed cities?” Shit, that’s a good point. Nic grunted his agreement as he reached out for his mouse and keyboard, navigating away from Skype and his desktop recording software until he was firmly buried inside of a folder labeled ‘transcripts.’ There, smack dab in the middle of the interview that started this whole thing in the first place, that first flipped the switch in his mind leading him to ask ‘What is Tanis?’ was the line in question. Nic answered her, his stomach twisting up at the thought. This, this was why he called MK when he needed his thoughts in order. When he thought he had the worst case scenario in mind, she could stop him in his tracks and without meaning to remind him of how naive he could be. It was a trait both infuriating and invaluable in his colleague.

“Adams talked about Tanis as an avatar for Atlantis,” he confirmed, his voice grim, his throat scratchy. Suddenly he wished he had not lukewarm coffee in front of him but ice cold water. “It was just rumors, not even theories, things people had said about Tanis but it - it’s oddly specific for our situation, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, Nic, it is.”

“If Tanis is real, if it could reach as far south and west as Arcadia Bay, a tiny town smack dab in the middle of a heavily wooded coast, I think it would be bad.” The statement felt weak on his tongue, like he was loathe to admit that maybe this was Tanis, that maybe Tanis could do something he had not yet collected information or even theorization about. Really, when one thought about it, Tanis had been on his mind for over a decade and a half. Pursuing it had consumed almost three years of his life by this point; it was no longer just a job or an expression of his need for mystery. It was a world unto itself which had swallowed him whole and taken him away from that of family dinners, banter around office water coolers and things like nine-to-fives and blind obsession about what was coming next in life. He hadn’t spoken to some people whose friendship he valued since this had all begun.

“Bad how?” MK prompted him. The impatience was gone from her voice, now, but she wavered between concerned and forceful. Nic knew he was the horse that MK was leading to water. She wanted him to drink but something about this stream smelled rancid, like it would be unpleasant on the tongue. He was forced to do what he hated to do in the pursuit of Tanis: acknowledge that there was all the chance in the world that he had been to Tanis, that his memories and his journal about the trip to Tanis were not faulty and that whatever memories he was pulling up during his hypnotherapy with Dr. Bernier might hold kernels of truth in the middle of all the weirdness.

“Let’s say for a second that I wasn’t drugged or anything while I was out in the woods with Veronika, Sam, and Morgan.”

“Go on.”

“If I really went to some bizarre, Tanis-like cabin in the woods, if I actually did go to Tanis or a part of it, then the area around it, it was crazy. The things I recorded in my journal suggest the Cabin and the area around it, the area that Cameron Ellis calls the Breach, does something, something weird. Either to you or - ” he was interrupted yet again.

“Or to time and space.”

“I guess,” he qualified. “I mean, part of me still remembers it out there. It was so strange, with the Blur running around in my head, but I know we would walk in a straight line for what felt like all day and sometimes find ourselves back where we started. Or we’d wait somewhere for hours because the Runner - because Veronika said we had to and the light wouldn’t change at all. When it got dark the stars would move really fast or really slow. Once I thought I watched them going in reverse. None of that is to even talk about the things I heard in that woods, the things I saw. If the Cabin is part of Tanis, if the Breach is part of Tanis, well, I don’t know what would happen if it appeared in the middle of a city that small.” What he did not tell MK, because he felt it went without saying, was that he knew it would be bad. He knew it would be the end of that city and everyone inside of it, if not physically, then at least mentally. There are wondrous things.

“Destroying it doesn’t sound like the craziest possibility, Nic.”

“Maybe, but part of me still expects this to be unrelated, and part of me doesn’t see how it can be.” Nic caught himself rubbing at his arms as if he were cool, but he knew that he couldn't be. What he did feel was a way he had not felt in months. He felt as if, with just the thought of moving upward, he would be able to find himself floating on the ceiling, looking down at his body in his office chair, frail looking and a poor mimicry of what he really was. “They tick so many of the same boxes, they land in the same region, geographically. The only thing that doesn’t match up is this massive loss of life.” That was a valid point and he seized on it. “In other Tanis stories, myths, rumors, people don’t tend to die on such a scale. They go missing and usually when they go missing they show back up, right? Maybe changed, but still there.”

“There was the Portland Incident.”

“Something completely unsubstantiated, one of a hundred stories like that, unless something new has come up,” Nic told her. “Has it?”

“No, but then you told me not to look into it, and face it, I’m the best.” Nic had in fact told her not to bother. In pursuit of the truth about Arcadia Bay the first time, Nic had dug up so many National Enquirer tier conspiracy theories and throwaway ideas about people thought dead popping up all over the country, all over the world, that they no longer phased him. The Portland Incident was probably the most reasonable sounding of these theories but to him it smelled of just one more stack of bullshit on the pile. “It is the one theory that gained the most traction.”

“Alright,” Nic relented. “See if you can find anything, but I’m not holding my breath.”

“Hey, it’s your dime. So, about going out there?” Nic wondered whether he was any more confident in the decision he was about to make than he had been when the call started. He was certainly more confident that there were good odds that this was Tanis related.

“I’ll call Geoff,” he promised. “If he’ll come with me, I’ll call them and tell them I’m in.”

“Sounds good,” MK replied, before more slowly and lowly adding, “just, don’t go alone, Nic. We don’t need another Cult-of-Tanis, freaky Manson girl incident.” Nic laughed genuinely for the first time since the call started and it left behind a brief, if intense, feeling that was somewhere near euphoria in his stomach.

“No, we don’t.” It shouldn’t have been funny to be reminded of the time his naivety had led him to make such a mistake as to drink something given to him by a group he already knew liked to drug people. If anything, it should have been humbling, a reminder that he was fallible as hell and his beliefs, his objectivity and the actions he took were all more than capable of being questionable. “I won’t,” he promised.

“Alright, I gotta jet,” MK announced, sounding more her normal self all at once. Nic was reminded that she was up to something, that in that nebulous rest of her life outside of him and Tanis MK was probably doing something almost as dangerous for herself or others. He knew that she wanted her privacy on that but he could not help but wish he understood her and her motivations better. Face it, he told himself, you’ve stepped over a line where she’s concerned.

“Hey, MK? Thank you.”

“Thanks for the cash.”

“I thought I paid you in bitcoins?”

“Don’t be a smartass, Nic. I’m better at it than you.” The call ended all at once. He told the void, the unconnected call that he knew it and then sat in silence for a few seconds before ending his recording. Nic left the software up because he knew, even as he leaned back in his chair and contemplated the conversation he had just had with MK that he was going to have to call Geoff, shortly. Call Geoff. Then you need to make another call. Nic was looking forward to that next call more for a multitude of reasons, but he knew he and Geoff needed to talk. He was fairly certain the man would say yes to his request if it had even an ounce of connection to Tanis, but he knew that in order to not be taking advantage of Geoff van Sant, he would need to be honest and tell him the truth, that there was only a small chance. He started the software running again, and began to dial.

“Hello,” the man on the other end of the line all but called. It had only taken Geoff three or four rings to pick up. It never took more than that and it didn't matter what time of the day or night Nic called. Yet whenever he saw the man, Geoff looked as if he slept like a saint, rose early, took morning runs and ate his Wheaties. This was just one of the things that were a little mind boggling about Geoff van Sant but at the very least he was not an asshole about the fact that in comparison Nic looked like death warmed over, frozen again and then left on the roadside somewhere for later discovery.

“It's Nic,” he greeted the man. “How ya doing?”

“I'm fine, just got done working out and now I'm sitting in front of the tube, same thing I've been doing every day for months.” There were no sounds of a television in the background of the call. Besides, Nic was not an idiot. He knew Geoff was full of it. He knew the man was not sitting on his ass day after day, that he was out there every damn day actively trying to do something to understand his brother, Karl's, untimely death or his connection to the myth of Tanis. Geoff never talked about it, in fact actively refused to but Nic assumed that that was because his search involved people that Nic could not really talk to, or even know that Geoff knew or that Karl knew. After all, Geoff and Karl both were military and at least Geoff had been some kind of special forces. To top it all off, Karl van Sant had been a hacker of some kind. There was no way that Geoff was not up something which he was just not allowed to tell Nic about. Because he had that very same connection with many of the people looking into Tanis, Nic did not mind and so decided to humor him.

“Right, well, if you want to jump off that couch for a bit, I've got a proposal.”

“I'm listening buddy,” Geoff said. Nic heard the slight eager edge as it sunk into the man's words. Then, Nic did something he rarely did. He allowed himself to indulge in one act of petty revenge.

“Oh-ho, no. This time I'm putting the embargo on proposals over the phone.” Geoff's response was to laugh, good naturedly. In this way, Nic was sure that they held a friendship of their own. He did not think that anyone who Geoff did not look favorably upon would be met with laughter if they were to say they weren't going to tell Geoff something he wanted to hear. Call it a hunch, but Geoff didn't strike Nic as the kind of guy not to get answers if someone actually held them.

“Well, do you want to meet at the usual place - “ this time, it was Nic's turn to interrupt someone.

“To talk it over over a beer.”

“That sounds good to me, man.”

“It'll involve leaving town on Friday, probably being gone a few days. I'm not sure how long, but it involves remote locations, little foreknowledge and potentially questionable characters.” That was hardly the pitch to sell someone on a trip, but this was Geoff van Sant when it came to a potential Tanis lead. Nic could have said it involved walking naked across a blistering hot desert at the height of summer and the man's response probably would have been to ask if they could at least have an ice cold beer first.

“Doesn't it always, buddy?” Strangely enough, this time Geoff sounded as if he was getting ready to end the conversation, judging by the tone of his voice. Maybe Nic's hunch had been correct: maybe Geoff was currently very, very busy.

“That's how it always seems to go, isn't it?”

“Always,” the man agreed.

“Yeah,” Nic paused for a second to try to extract so much as the sound of a pin dropping from the background of the call, some kind of sign that Geoff was maybe somewhere dangerous or in a meeting or something and got nothing. “Yeah, alright, man, what do you think about seven-thirty, the usual place?”

“Sounds fine to me, but first round's on you.” Geoff's voice grew slightly more serious. “I'm interested to see what you've got for me.”

“Something about it doesn't sound like Tanis, but it might be. Either way, I've got one hell of a story for you.”

“Alright, I'm in, but I've gotta go now. I’ve got a late lunch cooking. Seeya later buddy.”

“Later,” Nic told him. and this time Nic hung up first. Unlike his conversation with MK, this one had been quick. Much like any given talk with the information specialist, though, it left Nic with more questions than answers. Between digital and physical formats spread across his desktop and the top of his desk, the entire Arcadia Bay file and almost all of the online chatter that MK had ever sent him about it (including posts from a disturbing subreddit dedicated to Chloe Price called ‘Arcadia Bae’) sat in front of him open and waiting to be taken advantage of. Staring at it all morning had not gotten him any closer to being sure about his decision to go to Arcadia Bay with the women who managed to escape it, but maybe his talk with MK and the addition of Geoff would be enough to give him a shove in the right direction. There was one other person to talk to, but he figured it was best to give her an hour or two more to get back from lunch and settle in where ever it was she found herself at the moment. Alex Regan was busy, busier even than Nic himself.

Geoff, on the other hand, he was convinced was busy but didn't really know all that much about. They had met at the start of his investigation into Tanis when Nic had made an attempt to mimic an apparently Tanis related ad on Seattle's Craiglist servers. From there, the story of Geoff's older brother and his death, not to mention his connections to Tanis had probably been mostly responsible for bending Nic's heart toward this stranger, for binding them together somewhat. He hoped that this connection with Geoff was not just another sign of his naivety. Ultimately, he considered Geoff a friend, an odd friend, but a friend. They each chased Tanis down in their own ways and, at least, the relationship had not been entirely one-sided. While he had asked Geoff to come along to protect him physically and balance him mentally before, he had provided a thing or two to Geoff as well: in addition to having taken him up to the edge of the Breach, he had been given to understand that in the course of kicking up dust with his investigation he might have made things easier for Geoff to find answers of his own. Fucking grey pancake walls. What the hell does grey pancake even mean? Nic chuckled to himself. On some level, Nic had to remind himself, Geoff had to be more than he looked. Sometimes he came off too genuine, too thoughtless and carefree which made no sense for someone who was retired special forces. Nic did not believe for a second that the laid back persona Geoff showed the world was all that was going on up there in the man's head. He hoped that the man was simply overcompensating in the face of unimaginable stress and loss.

Nic was completely enamored by and happily caught up in Tanis. That being said, there was no question that it was stressful, all-consuming. All-consuming, Nic thought. Interesting word. MK's question came back to mind. What would happen if the Cabin and the supernatural effects of the Breach and the Calm manifested in the center of a town like Arcadia Bay? Nic had to think on that, because his first instinct would be to assume mass insanity. Certainly, he thought as he leaned back in his chair, there were myths about settlements being suddenly emptied all at once which people liked to blame on mass hysteria. Maybe it would be something like that. For the next hour and a half Nic buried his head in the Arcadia Bay files, going over details both from them and the interview he had conducted himself. When he lifted his head from those files again, it was close to four in the afternoon.

Nic rose from his desk and stretched. He was sorer than he thought he should be and the audible pops of his joints as he turned this way or that made him think that he must be getting old. It was more than late enough to make the last call of the day, but as he turned on the spot in the room his eyes landed on the door leading out of his office to the smaller one adjacent to it and from there out into the hallway from which other rented office spaces could be accessed. His door had been locked since some time around eleven in the morning and he had heard nothing from Sarah. This was not entirely unusual, but it had never gone on this long before. A sort of deep guilt settled into his stomach. What harm would it have caused for him to be half sociable even for thirty seconds with someone who did so damned much for the Tanis podcast, this object of his borderline obsession? Nic walked over to the door, unlocked it and leaned out.

Outside of the door, the room was bright: it had a window where his did not and where half of his lights had been turned off because the dim light seemed to help him think, the old halogen lights overhead buzzed brightly behind their wireframe covers. A moment before, he could tell that the brunette behind the desk had been staring at her computer. Now, quickly she lifted her head, eyes attentive and a little bit searching. Nic wondered if she was bored and had been playing solitaire or something of the like. The memory of when his life used to let him get that bored seemed distant and foreign.

“Is everything alright?” he asked Sarah, not because the look on her face spoke of concern or guilt or anything, but because it suddenly felt important to check in.

“Yeah, why?” In her voice he caught concern that something might be wrong and she had not noticed it.

“Oh, I just realized I locked myself in there a little longer than usual. Feel like a bit of an ass.”

“Everything's fine on my end,” she promised him and Nic tried not to read too much into the relief in her voice. He remembered his time as an intern and hoped that the woman did not have the same concerns about him that he used to have about his old boss, that at some point he would snap and start acting like a total dick. In fairness, his old boss had turned out to be a perfectly fine person, but Nic had been younger then and constantly on edge that he was about to make some great misstep to derail his life. If he had known then what he knew now, that in pursuit of stabilizing himself in the world he would derail his life more completely than he had ever thought possible, that Nic Silver would have been a lot more laid back. “Unless there's a file you need or – or something else?” Nic did his best not to chuckle at the reluctant acceptance slipping into her voice. She's hoping I don't send her on a coffee run. He never really did unless he was truly desperate which meant he was probably coming off to her as looking truly desperate then and there. Maybe he would try to go to sleep earlier, that evening, once things wrapped up with Geoff.

“No,” he said, unable to stop from smiling at her relief. “I'm barely able to get my head around the file in front of me. I'm fine.” After a pause he decided it was important to reassure the woman a bit farther, relax her. He really had, in retrospect, acted rather oddly that day. Usually if he locked the office door and put himself away from the world it was only for an hour at a time. “You can go ahead and take off at the usual time. I'll be here late, but not as bad as yesterday. I shouldn't need to bother you about anything else.” Her response was a smart salute. Nic shook his head and returned to his office without locking the door. His phone lay where he left it on the desk.

Me  
Hey got time for a Skype call?

  
Alex  
Give me a minute and I'll call you.

With Strand rn.

Me  
You two spending a lot of time together, lately?

Alex  
He's finally telling me more or less everything, as far as I can tell, so yeah. Not to mention all of these tapes.

  
Nic  
Alright alright. I know that feeling. I'll be here.

Nic decided to spend the time waiting productively. He started by composing an email to the higher ups. It wasn't a particularly stressful venture, the message simply informed them that he was going to be out of the office on Friday and Saturday at least chasing a lead. At this point, they did not ask a ton of questions of him. In that way, Tanis reminded him of his short time helping on Alex's podcast back at Pacific Northwest Stories. Eventually, weird as they might be, the things that get views and hits, that bring in ad revenue and cause buzz for the companies sponsoring and producing the shows tended to get blank checks, as long as their creators didn't really screw up. Nic, for his part, had done his best on Tanis to protect vulnerable individuals and the higher ups. Hell, Terry's the only one whose name I think has been exposed in connection with the show so far. Considering Terry was still a giddy fanboy of all things Tanis, even after Nic's time in the cabin, Nic doubted he minded that at all.

When Alex called him through Skype, Nic was waiting to answer right off of the bat. Since there was no need to record the call, he simply answered and stopped the low ringing demanding his attention. Nic wasn't going to put any kind of call like this between he and Alex on the air, not at this point. He just needed to hear from his friend and long time sounding board. MK was great and all, but Alex Regan had been a friend and colleague since they were Pacific Northwest Stories interns together, busting their asses, chasing leads, prepping stories, dragging around coffee for their bosses and filing papers, all for the grand reward of a pat on the back. This woman was someone he trusted implicitly and with no caveats or regret.

“Hey,” Alex greeted him and Nic winced at her voice. For as much trouble as he might have sleeping, for as tired as he might feel most of the time, Alex sounded absolutely devastated. Nic knew she had never really recovered from the sleep issues resulting from her dive into Dr. Richard Strand's Black Tapes. The things she had seen, heard and felt Nic could not imagine. Their mutual sleep therapist, Dr. Bernier had done wonders just by helping her get some sleep again. Sometimes I think if I could remember the Cabin, I could give Alex a run for her money. That was the first time that that thought had ever occurred to him and it was one of the few ideas which had ever given him pause toward pursuing his hypnotherapy sessions with Bernier. Also, note to self, cancel Saturday's session. I've got a trip to Oregon.

“How are you doing, Alex?”

“I'm alright,” the woman insisted, though she punctuated the statement with a loud and unmistakable yawn. Judging from the quality of the audio, she was talking to him through her laptop, which meant she was on the move somewhere. “I just – we were pulling an all nighter trying to cross reference the things on the tapes with all this crap out there on the Unsound, on these old stories about nationwide cults and, don't worry about it. You don't need my problems. I - ” Likely Alex had planned to scold him, to tell him he had enough on his own plate, but she was interrupted after only another syllable by yet another yawn and this time he picked up the shuffle of papers somewhere near the microphone.

“Hey, I asked for a reason. I miss you and I'm concerned. Ever since you started prepping for your third season – I guess part of me just wishes I was back working with you.”

“And the other part wouldn't give up what you've got going on for the world,” she insisted. “I'm fine, Nic. I'm just working a little late and I've got Strand here with me.” Nic swallowed. He hadn't known that Doctor Strand was in the room. At the very mention of Richard Strand, a part of him grew a little more uptight. It wasn't that the young, once wealthy doctor behind the Strand Institute was inherently a bad person. The man was somewhat misanthropic and certainly liked to butt heads with people as if it was his job, not to mention an eternal skeptic with a dry sense of humor but, hell, look at MK.

Nic liked those people. Nic had been fine to set aside how trying Richard Strand could be the few rare times he had met the man, but there was one thing about the brunet which made Nic glad he no longer helped on The Black Tapes. Though it was the very definition of a coincidence, sometimes Richard Strand's attitude, not to mention his particular methods of articulation and voice, reminded Nic very heavily of Cameron Ellis. If there was anyone who, right now, Nic did not want to so much as think about, it was the billionaire offering him a job in the Breach.

“Hello, Nic.”

“Hello Dr. Strand.” Nic realized as he greeted the man that it had been some time since he had had any clue what Alex did on a daily basis. That felt almost a little crushing: she was a good friend. She is a good friend, he corrected himself. He did not have to lose himself in Tanis so completely that he lost a friendship such as Alex Regan's. “Any luck with finding your bilocating sociopath?” Twin sighs met his ears, one of exhaustion from Alex and frustration from Strand. Nic had expected both but it was still a somewhat comforting sound. It was very reminiscent of the early days in Alex's investigation, when Strand was still a somewhat hostile, or at least dismissive part of it. He still seemed to believe that anything labeled 'paranormal' was inherently nonsense, but Nic had been listening closely to the second season of The Black Tapes and was beginning to suspect that that might be as much about comforting himself as anything else.

“Simon Reese remains as... bisecting a topic as ever.” The man’s voice remained dry and impassive, but Nic blinked at the comment.

“Was that a pun?” Alex questioned the man Nic assumed was sitting just across a table from her, judging by the volume of his voice. “Because there was literally no reason not to use the word 'divisive' unless that was a pun.” Strand's response was a gruff grunt.

“Well,” Nic said, sighing himself. “I'm grappling with a bit of a conundrum and I wanted to run something by you, Alex. I need to know if I'm being too short sighted here, taking too big of a risk.”

“Should I leave the room?” Strand asked through the computer. As trying as Richard Strand could be and as much as his voice and attitude sometimes reminded Nic of Cameron Ellis, he was an intelligent man with experience in risky situations.

“Honestly, I'd value your input as well.” Truthfully, this was not even much of a fib. You did not find yourself with as many degrees as Strand held without being capable of, at the least, rational thinking. “I know what you think of Tanis and the reports around it, but I'm pursuing a lead right now about the town of Arcadia Bay, Oregon. Have either of you heard of it?” There was a slight pause and then Alex hummed for a moment.

“Sounds familiar, but not my territory.”

“I think I recall a report about a town in Oregon that was flattened in some sort of superstorm a couple of years back.” This was Strand. Come to think of it, for a multitude of reasons that kind of report might have been right up his alley. It would've gotten the old mythology and religion student in him fairly curious given the end of times paranoia that had sprouted up briefly around it. Nic was given to understand there had even been one small and short lived cult formed with the belief that that storm had been a sign of the end times as its central tenet.

“Yeah,” Nic agreed, “except that reports came out of the town of some weird meteorological and astronomical phenomena in the days before the storm. Some of it feels really similar to some myths about Tanis and there were a pair of survivors, one of whom has said some pretty, well, crazy stuff in connection to the storm.” He paused and then confessed openly the thought he had considered holding back, especially with Richard Strand in the room. “Admittedly, she was in treatment for a mental breakdown at the time she said it.”

“Doesn't strike me as the best source for objective facts, does it you?”

“It sounds like there are other sources,” Alex shot back at him.

“There are,” Nic promised. “But I talked to the survivors yesterday, and they've agreed to tell me their full story under the condition that I go out to Arcadia Bay, Oregon with them.”

“What's your question, Nic?” Strand prompted. Nic tried to ignore the familiar tone in his voice, the placating one that might have been a cover for impatience. Ellis spoke with it every time he asked Nic to come work for TeslaNova.

“I guess I'm wondering if this is reasonable, if my behavior is reasonable.”

“If you're asking if you're maintaining objectivity,” Alex started, “I think the answer is a really, really emphatic no.” Nic sighed.

“You might be right,” he told her, but he held back saying that he still thought that the two of them were in a club on that front. Alex had lost objectivity when it came to Richard Strand, Simon Reese and The Black Tapes in general a long time ago.

“Personally,” Strand cut across them, “I'd be curious to see what you learn about these odd occurrences you said were reported before the storm. You said they were astronomical in nature?”

“Yes, actually,” Nic leaned forward slightly. Strand's take on this detail might be entertaining if it did not turn out to be interesting. Strand couldn't really shout 'apophenia!' at this. “A couple of days before the storm, the town experienced a solar eclipse, which makes absolutely no sense. It doesn't align with our knowledge of our solar system and, to boot, was only visible within city limits. There was some amateur film taken of it and it got out to the media before the storm hit. Eight hundred different accounts of witnessing the film as well as the copy of the video that the news agency got their hands on still exist on the internet. Then the day before the storm, residents and visitors in the town reported seeing a second moon in the night sky. There are photos all over social media about that one.” The man hummed deep in his throat as he thought.

“It sounds like you might be on the verge of discovering evidence of a new meteorological anomaly, Nic.” Nic sagged in his seat. Ever the skeptic, Strand was actually trying to imply that there was a simple, scientific explanation for two moons. Was he really going to be one of those claiming atmospheric light refraction had something to do with it? Of course he is. “I'd be very interested in seeing what you come up with.”

“You know, if I come up with anything hard and fast as data, I'll send it your way.” Nic knew better and he knew Strand knew better. Hard and fast data seemed to be hard to get about anything either of them researched, yet Strand clung to scientific objectivity as if it were the only thing keeping him afloat on a turbulent sea. Nic was starting to wonder if that was precisely what it was to the man. Hard and fast data might not be hard to get my hands on if I went to work for Ellis. Nic almost didn't notice it go quiet as he sparred with himself over whether he should trust Ellis anymore than he trusted anyone else. That seemed to be taking up a pretty significant portion of his life now, trying to figure out who to trust and why.

“Are you going to be okay, Nic?”

“I will,” he promised Alex. “I just needed to be told I was stepping over the line again. I've been playing it nice and safe since the Cabin and I think that it's been holding me back.” Strand did not speak. Nic wasn't sure what Strand knew about the Cabin and he was not at all interested in hearing what the man thought had actually happened to him. If he needed someone telling him he was losing his mind, he would just look into a mirror and voice any one of a thousand thoughts to that effect he had on a daily basis.

“You are crossing lines, you are taking a risk if you go out there.” Nic remembered how frantic Alex had been when he had disappeared into the woods around the Cabin, spurred on no doubt by the things MK had shown her involving a group of people who had gotten lost in that particular neck of the woods. He had no personal memory of the search party, but he was given to understand that the entirety of not just the Public Radio Alliance but also Pacific Northwest Stories had been out there looking for him. It was kind of bizarre to imagine people like Alex, Terry and Paul Bae out wandering the woods, the Breach looking for him. Talking to Alex like this, Nic was struck by how lucky he was that none of them had gotten hurt or lost in the Breach. He was also struck by how grateful he should feel toward each and every one of them.

“I don't think I can hold back, anymore. I think I've stalled and floundered long enough. I have to start making decisions.”

“I understand, but I worry.” Nic was worried about her too, and he told her as much. Considering how tired she was, he felt guilty keeping her any longer but they caught up for the next few minutes anyway, and he even got some enjoyment about hearing about what Strand had been up to. Whatever else he was, Strand was not boring.

Neither, of course, was the man who Nic found himself watching as he entered the bar a couple of hours later. Nic slipped his recorder from his pocket and caught the eye of the bartender across the room. She did not need to wait for him to speak, instead turning away to retrieve the customary first round of a couple of bottles of guiness as Nic sat the recorder on the table and turned back toward Geoff. For someone who enjoyed his brews, the brown haired man with the sharp nose and laid back smile on his face was lean and tall. Nic suspected that in general Geoff ate better and lived a much healthier life than he did, considering most days he didn't even have the energy to cook Blue Apron meals. That was something he didn't think he should ever say on the air, if he wanted any chance of their sponsorship.

“Hey buddy,” Geoff greeted as he reached the table and shrugged his jacket off to rest across the back of a chair. The man settled into his seat, looked down at the recorder to see that it was on, though not yet recording and then looked up at Nic, shaking his head a little ruefully. His hair was no longer the neat buzz cut it had been when Nic had met him, now it was just shaggy enough to move as he shook. “I'm really psyched to hear what you've got to sell to me, but I need to pop a top first.” Nic chuckled.

“Understood.” As the bartender approached, a fairly tall woman in her mid thirties, not much younger than Geoff himself, Nic realized he was a little nervous about the conversation to come. He had had trouble making this decision and in the end that was more concerning and confusing than the decision itself. The crowd around them was pretty thin, considering it was a weekday but that was actually impressive enough in a small dive bar like this. The bar owner's idea of decoration was old driftwood that looked like someone had tried desperately to carve something out of and mount to the wall. It just had the effect of making the dark wooden walls look somewhat crappier, but the bar was never too terribly loud and the pours were nice and precise. If the bartenders erred, it was usually in the favor of the customer. Speaking of, the woman in question reached their table with a pair of bottles on a tray and two empty glasses in hand. Nic smiled at her as she told them to have a good time, but she was busy, or distracted and didn't notice. That was okay. Nic still tried to act kind to food and drink servers, especially down here. They tended to be treated just a little bit shittier south of the border.

Nic watched Geoff take one glass and one bottle and make as if to pour his beer before he sat the glass back down, pressed the neck of the bottle to his lips and took one, exaggeratedly small sip. The glass bottle clunked on the bar, the man folded his hands, leaned forward and placed his elbow on the table to indicate that he was paying attention.

“I'm all ears.” Nic silently pressed record on the small, rectangular digital recorder in front of him and Geoff's response was to chuckle, run his hand through his thinning dark brown hair and sit back. For the next couple of minutes, Nic filled Geoff in starting at the beginning, from a massive storm that had leveled a town save for two survivors all the way to an interview with those survivors during which he had expected multiple times to find a wrench hurled at him. Geoff, for his part, watched with sharper, more focused eyes than he usually did, with grimly set lips and an otherwise calm expression on his face. By the time that Nic was done, he found himself genuinely concerned about the next words to come out of Geoff's mouth. The man looked like he was on the verge of waving this all off as bullshit.

“What does it mean if this does end up relating to Tanis?” Nic sat back in his seat and paused with his bottle halfway to his mouth. There were a lot of ways to look at that question and he wasn't sure what angle the man was coming at it from. “Because to me it means it can affect cities.” It means, Nic realized as the words came out of Geoff’s mouth, that Tanis might have the capability to destroy civilizations. There had always been myths hinting at or suggesting it, but this would be a confirmation.

“I guess it means no one and nowhere in the Pacific Northwest is safe.”

“Then, yeah,” Geoff said as he raised what was left of his first beer, as if in toast, “I think I'd better go with you.” Nic was about to express both his gratitude and relief when the man tipped the bottle back, sat it down a little harder than he looked to have intended and added, “The question is, when do we leave.”

“Friday,” Nic told him.

“I lied,” the man said immediately, “one more question.”

“Okay,” Nic agreed, laughing a little awkwardly.

“What does it mean to you if this is Tanis related.” Nic scratched his chin but ultimately decided he simply didn't know.

“This is Nic Silver from the Public Radio Alliance. I'm leaving you a voicemail to let you know that I'm going to take you up on your offer about going out to Arcadia Bay. There will be one other person with me and we'll probably be able to leave in the late morning or early afternoon on Friday. Could you please call me back at this number so we can take care of making any other plans? Thanks.”

 


	4. The Drive

Disclaimer: I own the rights to more or less nothing seen here, nothing from Life is Strange or the Public Radio Alliance or Pacific Northwest Stories. This is entirely a fanbased work for personal enjoyment. 

* * *

#  Chapter Four: The Drive

_ Nic _

_ My friend and I will be leaving in about ten minutes. Safe travels. _

 

_ Me _

_ Ok. _

 

Max was tired. At least, she was more tired than she had any right to be as she shifted in the passenger seat of the rental car her parents had been kind enough to secure for the two of them. They had been on the road for an hour and a half before she had lowered the volume on the impressive stereo system and decided she had better try to steal a half hour's nap. That had been half an hour ago, and Max had not slept a wink, even when the only sound in the cab was the occasional hum emanating from Chloe's throat, the whine of the engine and the sound of the wheels against the pavement. Whether it was the fact that she had been trying to sleep in a car seat to begin with, traveling unfamiliar – or at least, barely familiar-- roads or anxiety about the trip, Max did not think that she was any closer to sleep than she had been when she had first turned the music down and closed her eyes. Since she was not sure that sleep was really a possibility, Max leaned her seat upward and looked not out at the interstate but to her left, toward the woman with the bright blue hair who momentarily split her attention between Max and the road, just long enough to turn her lips upward in a strange, almost abstract mimicry of a smile before focusing her eyes forward and returning to tapping on the wheel with one hand, in a rhythm that made no sense to anyone not listening to the music in her head.

 

Max wiped her bangs back from her forehead and adjusted her hair so that it was not in her way as she brought herself to a more waking state. She did not speak as she half leaned, half turned to her left. Beside her, Chloe sat both rigid and slightly back in her seat, her long arms extended fully, eyes wide. Despite an almost calm smile sitting on her face, everything else about Chloe looked anything  _ but  _ calm. Max reached out and placed a hand atop the cotton covering Chloe’s shoulder. The woman shivered under the touch and her eyes shot sideways. Before Chlose could ask whatever question was forming behind her eyes, Max released her and sighed, looking down at the console between them. Two very tall (and as Max discovered when she picked them up) very empty cans of Monster sat on display. Chloe wasn't nervous, she was  _ wired. How the hell did she even do that in half an hour?  _

 

At least Chloe was smart enough not to get into the other cans in the car, like those in the two twenty-four packs sitting on the back floorboards, beneath their luggage. The beer was the result of, after listening to Nic Silver's podcast in its totality, realising the most likely the only person Nic would 'trust to have my back' was likely to be a man called Geoff van Sant. It didn't help that when Max had asked Nic if he would be able to cover his expenses or anything, he thanked them for the offer but said that the friend he was bringing would want to have a beer with them before he willingly followed them into Arcadia Bay. At that point, two nights prior, Chloe had begun to lament that Nic was not bringing Meerkatnip alone. Max had thought about playing jealous just to mess with Chloe but ultimately she had not had the heart or the energy. Now that their focus on learning what they could about Nic and his motivations had paid off, Max and Chloe had both been hit by the realization that they were embarking on a journey which Max at least had promised herself she would never take. She knew Chloe was still unhappy about the trip in general, but she had begun to warm up to the idea of Nic Silver as a person.

 

“Well, Supermax has joined us,” Chloe declared after a couple of seconds of silence. Max thought about stubbornly asking who 'us' was but she did not as Chloe popped her hands against the steering wheel as if for emphasis. The bluenette was in surprisingly good spirits considering the fact that they were almost halfway to a small town nearest the remains of Arcadia Bay called Edgeton. Instead of answering, Max remembered the curiosity and focus in Chloe's voice the night before as the two sat in bed catching the freshly released episode of Tanis and Chloe had spent some time theorizing about who exactly would have been able to hunt down and abduct someone like MK, the blunt and evasive hacker who seemed to work with Nic. In a way, Chloe's interest in all of this was a good sign, Max thought, though they had come to a mutual agreement days ago that whatever Tanis was, it had nothing to do with the events of the Storm, with time travel and a pair of sexual predators turning on one another. Nic was going to be disappointed, or maybe he would enjoy the story. Either way, Max was ready to tell it. It did seem like she might be the only one because as Max rubbed at her eyes, which were frustrated and demanding that she close them and try again for sleep, Chloe did not want to talk about the man they were going to meet or their podcast. She wanted to talk about anything else. “So,” Chloe started, sounding as if she could sense that Max's focus had been turned inward and she remained firmly buried in her own thoughts, “how'd calling in go this morning? I forgot to ask. Did Mrs. Chase lose her fucking mind?”

 

“Someone else took the call, but they didn't sound impressed,” Max finally said, yawning. She did not feel comfortable in the seat at all, and suspected that that had to do with the way the seatbelt was restricting her, reacting unkindly to her first lying back and then sitting up in her seat. “I'm sure I'm going to get plenty of crap about it when I go back in on Monday, or whenever.” The Chase Space was beginning to become familiar again, as it had been when she was much younger, but in a vastly different way. It was beginning to become a reminder that she was a fish on the hook, completely at Mrs. Chase's mercy and that was something the woman seemed to have absolutely none of.  _ I know, I know, 'there's no room for weakness in the world of art.'  _ Chloe waved her hand in front of Max's face, and Max turned back toward her.

 

“Earth to Max, come on back.” Maybe she had been rather distracted, but every time Max grew quiet and found herself losing focus, her thoughts strayed to one of the issues weighing on her mind. “Are you going to be okay? You realize you've barely talked  _ all  _ day.” Chloe emphasized this last in a playfully whining voice. The thing was, as much as Chloe practically bounced in her seat and was clearly full to the brim with one of the most disgusting energy drinks Max had ever had the misfortune of tasting, she was not convinced the other woman was exaggerating. While Chloe seemed to be either actively trying not to think of Arcadia Bay or to convince Max that she was not, Max could not stop her thoughts from eventually turning back to it.

 

“Sorry,” she told her girlfriend, honestly. “I guess I'm just overthinking all of this. How did it go when you called in?”

 

“Oh,” Chloe waved the question off. “They never even really asked any questions. They just told me to show up for my shift on Monday.” Max nodded. Chloe had said that the restaurant was desperate for staff, but privately she thought they had more wiggle room, more options. Chloe could choose to look for another job, if she wanted to. That was, perhaps a struggle for another day. “I'm even considering it,” Chloe finished. When she turned back to Max, her face was serious for a second and then she sighed exaggeratedly. “C'mon, that was funny.”

 

“Sorry,” Max repeated, smiling crookedly at the woman.

 

“It's going to be okay, Max,” Chloe assured her as she hit the car's turn signal and went around a particularly slow station wagon the color of the walls of their old apartment, which was to say that it had once been white but had long since yellowed. “You were right about this. This is something we really need to do.” Maybe Chloe was right. None of the reasons she had originally suggested the trip to Arcadia Bay for had vanished: Max still needed to see Arcadia Bay to quiet the last of those nagging voices in the back of her head and if they were going to tell their story to Nic it would be better if it were done on site. Privately, Max thought Chloe might benefit from the experience too, but it was not her place to make a decision like that. As long as Chloe came to Arcadia Bay willingly, Max wasn't going to ask much else of her.

 

For the next several minutes, Max returned to her attempt to sleep, but the seatbelt dug into her shoulder and the thickening traffic around them had jacked Max's anxiety up in a way she had not expected. Once more, the silence led Max down a familiar and unwelcome path of thoughts: names and dates and faces of those long departed and, in many cases, precisely how they had died because she had not saved them. Max did not expect this trip to rob her of her guilt over Arcadia Bay. She did not think anything or anyone ever could. Every last one of those lives were on her hands, but the alternative had been simply unthinkable. One might as well have put a gun in her hand and asked her to shoot Chloe herself.  _ Kill someone, or through inaction let over a thousand people die.  _ As soon as Max realized she was returning to the core of her frustrations, her stomach twisted in protest, throat closing slightly and she sat up. This silence was not just hurting her, not just leaving her alone with her thoughts. No matter how much Chloe pretended to be alright when Max turned her head toward the woman, she knew that the bluenette had been stuck behind the wheel for almost an hour without even her music to distract her from what had to be trying, uncomfortable thoughts.

 

Without a word, Max wrapped her hand around Chloe's CD case, popped the first one out of its case and slid the CD labeled 'Firewalk' into the car's player. Chloe looked confusedly toward her. The woman's face changed a few seconds after the first song began to play. Though she had gone back to looking at the road, Chloe had stiffened back up and neither confusion nor this false look of ease she had been wearing the whole trip thus far remained in prominence. Instead, as the first of the vocals poured in, Chloe's face split into a look that might be somewhere between anger and terror. She looked rather like someone who had just seen the ghost of a long dead, and unwelcome, relative. Her eyes did not break from the road ahead or the pale blue Altima ahead of them, but the bluenette reached over with her right hand and slammed her palm against the eject button once, without warning. Max swallowed as Chloe blinked and focused on the road. She read the watering of the woman's eyes and slowly took hold of the CD which was, by this point, sticking halfway out of the player. Max slid the disc away and began to look for the second in the case silently. She could not help but feel genuinely upset by what had just happened because it spoke to Max of some sort of buried frustrations. Chloe had not let onto any of those at all.

 

“You know, we're just over the state line,” Chloe suddenly announced, not looking away from the road as she tried to force her voice back into the very picture of a comfortable, friendly chat. Max paused with the new CD in hand, one she had not even looked at, and stared pointedly at the woman. “Technically we've been back in Oregon for a while now.” Max did not look away. Chloe refused to make eye contact. They sat that way in a strained silence for almost a minute, Max feeling as if part of her was afraid to look away for fear of missing something and another was scared to know what had just happened. The new CD rested halfway in the input slot for the CD player, but Max did not push it in for fear that it would start to play and give Chloe any kind of out. After a few seconds more, Max was forced to ask.

 

“What was wrong with that CD?” She asked this question gently, prodding. Was it possible that Chloe was frustrated with Max for trying to sleep on this trip? After all, the trip had been her idea and Chloe had originally been against it. Maybe it  _ had  _ been selfish of her to try to dodge the negative thoughts in her head made all the worse by the promise of seeing Arcadia Bay while leaving Chloe with no choice but to confront her own alone. If it was that simple, Max would feel guilty, but confused. What she had just witnessed was as close to a petty outburst as Chloe Price came, nowadays. Chloe still had her outbursts, of course, but never so petty, never so childish.

 

“Lost my taste for them,” Chloe lied immediately. What she did next though, was to reach for the CD case on Max's lap. It did not take a genius to guess that Chloe's intent was to secure and do away with the apparently offending CD. She could easily break it with one hand at the risk of cutting herself on the pieces or just as easily roll the window down and toss it out onto the interstate to shatter against or beneath the wheel of another vehicle at seventy miles-per-hour.  _ And if she does,  _ Max told herself as she pulled the CD case out of Chloe's reach and sat it between her right hip and the door beside her,  _ I'll never get the truth out of her. _

 

“In that case, I'll keep it for myself,” Max insisted. Instead of getting more irritation out of the woman, Chloe just made a face and put her hands back on the wheel. Max considered trying to lighten the mood by sticking her tongue out at Chloe, goad her into laughter or at least calming down. Instead, the woman looked to be trying to place a calm, collected look overtop the remains of the distraction, the pain and frustration Max had just seen plainly etched into her face at the first couple of bars of a song that Max was pretty sure she had never paid close enough attention to herself to recognize even if she had likely heard it before. Max went quiet when Chloe did.  _ Is Chloe doing bad? _

 

Maybe Chloe didn't  _ like  _ to bottle things up when she was afraid that talking about it would make Max angry, but she certainly had done so once. The result of that had been a blow up that had convinced Max she had finally lost Chloe. There had been an agreement after that to be as honest as they could with one another and though it had been tested from time to time, by Max more than either of them, she had thought they were long past the time where  _ something  _ was going to bother either of them that significantly and go undiscussed.  _ This is the worst time to push her,  _ Max decided,  _ but maybe it's an even worse time not to.  _ They had agreed, no more bullshit, no more hiding things from one another to spare each others' feelings and no more lying. Max had done her part ever since the day she revealed the imagined Rachel Amber's threats against her girlfriend. Now, Chloe was not doing hers.

 

“Chloe,” Max started, as softly as she could. “I know you're not telling me everything about what has you upset.” Where a moment ago Chloe had been trying to return to drumming on the steering wheel to a beat in her head, as soon as Max spoke the woman's hands gripped it tightly enough that her knuckles began to shine a fairly bright white against her already pale skin. “We agreed to tell each other these things, right?” They had. Max was not asking for confirmation’s sake but instead to drive the point home. It wasn't that she wanted to make Chloe feel guilty: Max felt enough guilt in that moment to hold within her mind a lifetime's supply for both of them.

 

“The CD is kind of special to me,” Chloe finally said, though she said it so quietly that even the fairly modern engine of their Ford Fiesta and the heater running on low to keep the cab liveable nearly drowned the response out. Max blinked and fixed a completely unsatisfied look on her face which Chloe finally took in at a quick glance several seconds later. There were  _ several  _ CDs in this case which Max knew to be special to Chloe. One of them was an EP put out by a shitty rock band called Pisshead that had operated out of Arcadia Bay until its vocalist died in the storm. Tracking a working copy of it down had been the effort of a full month and Chloe only took it out of its case when she felt especially melancholy and nostalgic. Several other CDs made appearances when she was angry, when she was feeling romantic or when she felt inspired in some artistic way. For the most part, maybe half of the discs in the old black KoRn CD case were special to Chloe, which was why Max both handled the case and its contents with care and absolutely had not been willing to let Chloe at the CD she had been clearly intent on destroying. All told, Chloe's answer had not been an answer at all. “I  _ only  _ play it when I want to talk to someone, okay?” the woman asked, sounding put upon and upset. Unfortunately this did nothing to quiet the guilt or concern boiling in Max's knotted stomach and even less to really answer any of Max's questions.

 

“I don't understand,” Max told her, putting sincere effort into keeping her voice calm and even. This was doing nothing for Max's nerves.

 

“I won't lie to you, but I'm afraid you'll read too much into this.” Max did not speak again. She simply waited as Chloe swallowed, roughly, and blinked hard at the road in front of her. “I only play that CD when I need to talk to Rachel.” Quite suddenly, despite the heater's best efforts, Max shivered and felt rather cool indeed beneath her dark blue hoodie. Chloe saw this, because her face immediately reddened and contorted into some mix of grief and mortification.  _ There's a part of Chloe that is always going to belong to Rachel. _ As soon as she had given voice to the threatening thought, letting it out into the universe to to speak, Max quickly told herself,in no uncertain terms, to shut the hell up. If that was how it was, if part of Chloe would always be Rachel's, maybe that was only  _ right? If roles were reversed, if Chloe were to die, would I ever be able to let go of her completely? _ The idea both upset Max further and pushed the thought of Rachel Amber as some sort of rival force away again, back to the filing cabinet of dumb ideas where it belonged.  _ Fuck no.  _ She would never be able to let go of Chloe Price completely, not for all the money in the world or with a gun to her head. Max started to speak finally, sure she could form words that might calm them both down and send a portion of this sudden strain packing. “It's not romantic,” Chloe insisted immediately. “I swear. I just tell her about things I've seen or done lately. Things I think about from back then.” Max did not shut her mouth but she waited in silence until it seemed like Chloe had come to a natural pause. They swerved a little harshly into the center lane to go around another slow moving vehicle which Max did not pay any attention to.

 

“Chloe,” Max started, and no sooner had the name left her mouth then Chloe picked up where she had left off.

 

“I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to get the wrong idea, because I feel silly doing it, okay?”

 

“Chloe,” Max tried again.

 

“It  _ is  _ stupid, I know it is _.  _ I don't believe in ghosts or an afterlife or being able to talk to the dead.” As if scrambling to justify something she had no reason to feel guilty for, Chloe's voice rose a hitch and more quickly she added, “It's not just her, either. I talk to mom too. I don't- I can't remember when I started doing it. I just – one day I was just sitting alone in that fucking apartment, I'd smoked the last of the dope, I had a night shift at the diner in a couple of hours  _ and  _ Blair was taking the night off so I was going to be alone and I just started talking to Rachel.” Chloe only fell quiet when Max reached over and very slowly, very gently set her hand on Chloe's right hand, not hard enough to cause the woman to jerk the wheel. The bluenette still jumped.

 

“Chloe,” Max said, more forcefully. “I get it, okay?” Chloe freed her hand from beneath Max's and, with a sound far too similar to a sniffle for Max's taste given the woman's watering blue eyes, she held that hand out toward Max.

 

“What do you want?” she asked as Chloe's left hand remained firmly on the wheel.

 

“Give me that CD. I want to get rid of it.” The woman's face remained red. She looked fucking miserable, and guilty and it was all stupid.

 

“No,” Max told her as upset and anger stole over Chloe's face.

 

“Why the hell not?”

 

“If something ever happened to you and I found someone else but _they_ asked me to stop talking to _you,_ Chloe, I'd tell them to fuck themselves with an exhaust pipe and then get back to me on that one.” Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, Chloe's fell open slightly and the majority of her upset was replaced with a surprise comical enough to make Max laugh through the memories of Arcadia Bay, the images of a Rachel Amber who had been conjured up by her mind, Chloe's mind or both to torture her and even through the knowledge that they were speeding at over a mile a minute toward the place where she had once damned over a thousand souls. Her chuckle, however brief, seemed to be the signal that the air had changed. Chloe's grasping hand returned to the wheel and she sat in stunned silence for a second or two more before she, too, started to laugh. Being that graphic and that verbose was Chloe's territory, and Max felt awkward infringing on it.

 

“Wow, big words from Ms. Caulfield.” Maybe they were, maybe not, but she felt like she had, at least, pierced the wall that had formed between the two during the last couple of hours of silence.  _ It shouldn't really be this easy to get us in that state, though.  _ Max blamed it on the exceedingly stressful situation they found themselves in after having spent the last few months trying to keep things relatively light in their lives. _ I think the Rachel thing has been bothering Chloe for a long time and adding it on top of all of this just fucked things up.  _ Besides, some of the severity of the moment had to be in Max's head, worsened by spending time alongside the morose and morbid thoughts which she could not shake about either the past or the future. This all suggested to Max that maybe they had kept things too light for too long, now. While Chloe did not immediately change the subject to something serious, she did sound a little relieved and a little more honest about her emotional state when she spoke next. “Are you getting hungry?”

 

“I might be soon,” she told the woman. “And we could always just stop now and go ahead and trade off. I  _ can  _ drive you know.”

 

“I know,” Chloe told her, not taking the bait Max tossed out for her. In the past, Max had been ribbed more than a little for her early attempts at learning to drive. She had just gone from living in Seattle where she did better taking public transportation to living on campus at the school she attended. There had been no need for a license until recently. Max hoped that Chloe passing up that avenue for giving her shit was not a bad sign. “I've been a really bad influence on you,” Chloe finally admitted, though she sounded proud as she said it and a grin had begun to sneak its way onto her face, Max's outburst bringing out a visage of amusement where before poorly disguised tension had been been evident in every word and every glance.

 

“Good,” Max insisted. Chloe's answer was a low whistle either of surprise or appreciation which did nothing to make Max feel less silly for exploding. “I just wasn't going to be the reason you stopped talking to Rachel if it felt right to you,” she explained. It was important that Chloe heard her say those words.

 

“I understand, alright,” Chloe told her, though she sounded a bit more on edge than she looked. “I was just feeling self-conscious. I'm with  _ you,  _ Max and I don't want you to ever question that you're the person who makes me happier than I've ever been, even if Rachel still rattles around up here sometimes.” Chloe first gestured to and then rapped lightly against the right side of her beanie. Max knew the woman was referring more to her memory of Rachel than that of the Dream Rachel, the vindictive Not Rachel who Max suspected she had played a part in giving birth to. Max had to admit, though, that she never wanted to see Rachel Amber outside of photographs again and not just because she feared it would fuck her up again but because it would mean that Chloe was unwell and again projecting a part of her fears, her subconscious out into the world.

 

“I get it, and I promise you I understand and you don't have to apologize.” Max pushed in the CD that had long been sticking half out of the player, biding its time. For the next few minutes she sat quietly while they were treated to the musical stylings of Motorhead. It seemed to calm Chloe down, though the thing that it really did for Max was force her to focus on anything other than the thoughts in her head. Lyrically, she actually enjoyed most, though not all, of Chloe's music. She had learned a long time ago the music's value while angry or upset, too. It just still wasn't in her wheelhouse. Traffic thinned around them as they pushed past roughly Portland, Oregon some time later. Max 'whew'ed under the tone of the music. Somehow, though, Chloe either saw or heard this and turned a song ostensibly about a rebellious  _ and  _ unsuccessful gambler down.

 

“Wowzers,” Max sighed, “that traffic sucked. I really appreciate you handling it.” Chloe's grin came back in full force and it replaced some of Max's negative energy with an appreciation for the woman beside her.

 

“It's no problem, you just have to be okay fighting with assholes for every inch. I like doing that.”

 

“That's just one more reason I'm lucky to have you.” At this the bluenette preened slightly as the song in the background assured them that the only card they would need was the ace of spades.

 

“You should really stroke my ego more often, you know,” Chloe advised her matter-of-factly. “I  _ am  _ kind of a badass.”

 

“A total badass,” Max insisted, playing along as they pulled off of the interstate, down an exit whose sign claimed to have plenty of places to eat within an easy distance. She split her attention between the highway they turned out onto and the woman beside her who reacted to this response with more preening. “And cute too.”

 

“Gorgeous, I'd say,” Chloe corrected her.

 

“Gorgeous,” Max agreed as she caught sight, maybe a quarter of a mile down the road past a couple of gas stations and a liquor store, of a bright yellow Denny's sign.

 

“Throw me down and have your  _ way  _ with me gorgeous?” Chloe queried. Max figured she had no choice but to disappoint the woman, not firing back as Chloe took their game a step further. Instead, she pointed toward the Denny's excitedly. Chloe sighed as if they were both missing out on a great opportunity. “Well, whatever, there'll be no living with you for the rest of this trip if you don't get your pancakes.”

 

“You damn well know it,” Max promised, sitting up straighter in her seat as Chloe merged into the right lane in order to pull off of the highway. No matter how much she tried to sit up straighter, Chloe still rose above her. Max wondered if she could subtly raise her seat when they came out of the Denny's without Chloe noticing and teasing her for it. Most of the time it didn't bother her to look up a bit at the woman, but with this damned seatbelt digging into her now sore shoulder, it got a bit trying. Nonetheless, she looked up at Chloe and blinked away freshly watering eyes as she took in the strangely content smirk on her face.  _ Chloe does so much to take care of me. Sometimes I still don't understand why.  _ Either way, gift horses and mouths, right?

 

For Chloe's part, she really had tried to embrace Max's music or, at the least, suppress the urge to sigh at it. As she slid the CD Max had chosen into the player, though, Chloe got the feeling there were going to be the occasional sighs spread throughout the remainder of their journey, but she was fairly certain she would at least be able to resist rolling her eyes. Unless of course that made Max laugh, or turn red, or even made her pull a cute face. Other than that, Chloe was sure she would be able to resist. Max had gotten with the program, to a degree, on the heavier music: she at least appreciated it more than Chloe had ever dared to hope, and far more than expected. In return, Chloe wouldn't bitch about Max's music, even though it was all indie, folk or,worst of all, indie folk. It was all so mellow and ended up either being cloyingly happy and about nothing which Chloe could keep track of or it was this stupid bittersweet sad that carried plenty of weight but didn't offer any way to get it off her shoulders. That seemed pointless to her: if you wanted to be sad, there was plenty of shit going on out in the real world that was fucking upsetting.  _ Then again,  _ Chloe reminded herself as the first track started,  _ you're only so down on it because you're  _ extra  _ fucking touchy today, aren't you? _ Max pulled the car off of the old highway they had just detoured down for breakfast and onto the interstate. Chloe could see her tense up slightly as they approached it. Her girlfriend's anxiety was not at a managed state, even with her medication,  _ which you forgot to make sure she packed. _

 

As she had throughout the meal, Chloe thought about apologizing to Max once again for her drama over the damned Firewalk EP. While Max had done her best to assuage her guilt about talking to Rachel and that was something which Chloe would have to do some soul searching about, very little but time was going to rob her of the feeling that she had taken what was already a stressful day and added a bit more in the way of headache and guilt and all those lovely negative emotions that went along with any discussion of Rachel Amber. Max had even _ heard  _ the album once or twice before it had taken on its new meaning. The brunette hadn't been a stranger to it, so it made sense that Chloe's overreaction had triggered Max's curiosity and led to the woman digging deeper in.  _ Okay, so short of filling that cooler in the back with ice you don't have and popping a cold one, which could get you in deep shit, what can you do to make the rest of the trip better?  _ Max, it seemed, had some ideas on that front.

 

Chloe spotted a bit of movement out of the corner of her eye and found Max's right hand resting atop the gearshift. Considering there was no particular reason to shift gears in an automatic car while going seventy down an interstate, Chloe recognized the gesture for what it was and settled her left hand overtop of it, eventually lacing her fingers in Max's. Though they still sat in silence as the next song on the disc started, Chloe no longer felt as anxious or as if she might compulsively apologize and bring up the earlier tension. In fact, other than the connection with Max, the physical which augmented the emotional, Chloe mostly just felt full of pancakes and eggs. _ Totally fucking worth.  _ She thought that in the moment, at least, but she feared that evening when she popped a beer with Max, Nic and this Geoff character, she might regret it. By now, they had _ both  _ drawn some fresh conclusions about Nic Silver, who, by the way, Chloe thought really ought to cash in on that name and go full-on game show host.

 

Nic, Chloe had decided, was genuine. He was just someone of questionable objectivity attempting to hunt down the answer to some kind of real, actual mystery in this era where all the information in the world was always at your fingertips. To hear him talk the way he had when he came to visit them, he had found that mystery, even though the podcast didn't exactly reflect it yet. As of the brand new episode which had dropped two days prior, it still did not. That being said, it was possible that since the story that she had heard so far, Nic had changed or experienced something that made him something more or something beyond the person she and Max had listened to for what amount to a few hours spread out over the last several days. It was possible, but she was dubious. At the very least, though, the Nic they had met seemed different from the person featured hunting down leads in these episodes in one major way: he seemed a lot less cheery, overall.  _ You did kinda threaten him with a wrench, though.  _ He had also come off more focused and determined to get what he wanted. In that way, if only begrudgingly, she rather liked the man they had met.

 

They knew a lot less about their theoretical fourth member of their party. All signs pointed it to being a man also featured on the podcast, by the name of Geoff van Sant. All she knew about him was that his brother had been some kind of hacker type who hung himself, apparently used to sell trips to Tanis as cancer cures for exorbitant amounts of money (which made no sense for a person living in his brother's basement) and Geoff was apparently involved in all of this Tanis stuff for the sake of finding out what had happened to that brother. He also, as her mother would have put it, had a 'little problem with alcohol.' Chloe considered the policy of serious discussions being handled over a beer far from the worst idea that one could put forth and again, were they not in a vehicle hurtling down the interstate toward a nice, long coastal highway, Chloe might have been into her second or third beer already, especially with the way the music filling the cabin was starting to make her feel morose.  _ I just hope he's not some kind of closet douchebag,  _ Chloe thought. Admittedly, this Geoff's status as ex-military and Chloe's less than stellar record with people of that designation probably explained the concern about that point and she had to do something about that particular inclination toward prejudice before it got out of control.

 

One mellow, kind of sad song about lost love ended and while they waited for what Chloe thought was sure to be another to start, she decided to jump on the moment and bend Max's ear. The woman sat a little more relaxed behind the wheel despite the fact that the traffic was starting to thicken up around them as people likely preparing to travel the same highway they were headed to for sightseeing purposes began to pour onto the interstate. In fact, the only sign of the anxiety Chloe knew was almost always rolling around inside of Max's skull was the slight frown on her lips and the way that she did not really squeeze back as the two held hands. Most people would see these things and mark them as simple concentration on the road, but Chloe and Max had spent almost every free moment together since Arcadia Bay, if one discounted the three months Max had spent hospitalized. Chloe knew better. Otherwise, though, Max seemed as content as she was going to be when one considered where the two of them were currently headed.

 

“So,” Chloe mused, her attention firmly back on the podcast which had so distracted her from obsessing over the idea of seeing Arcadia Bay again over the last few days. “What do you make of those diary entries this chick is reading on Tanis? They're some weird shit. I wonder if they're from that weird LSD Tanis cult.” Over the past few hours, bringing up the podcast had been enough to earn her exasperated eyerolls. Now, though, Max seemed to welcome discussion and Chloe would rather talk about a podcast whose authenticity she had at first held serious doubts about than she would sit and brood on what they were going to see in Arcadia Bay.

 

“I mean, they're weird but, why them?”

 

“I don't know, taking away names and shit? That sounds pretty culty.” Max's lips quirked slightly upward. “Some eerie ass shit.”

 

“Yeah, taking the names away is weird, but didn't the 'Runner' say it was because names could confuse people?” Max asked her after she got over whatever momentary amusement had gripped her. They passed the end of an empty on-ramp so Max merged back into the right lane. Chloe also had to admit that Max had a point on that. Max remembered a lot of the details of this whole thing better than Chloe did, which was strange to her and occasionally annoying, simply because she was sure she had been paying closer attention to the show, or at least trying to. Chloe had found herself toying with the brunette's hair on more than one occasion instead of focusing entirely on the show.  _ That's  _ her  _ fault,  _ Chloe thought, a little bit petulantly.

 

“Sure, but then why won't they tell us where they got it from? They usually tell us about everything else they read, but Nic doesn't say anything about it. That friend of his, Alex, I think it was, just keeps reading it.” Max chuckled.

 

“Chloe, it's only been six episodes. Maybe they'll tell us on the next one.”

 

“ _ Or, _ ” Chloe suggested, an exaggerated devious grin on her face, “when they get here, we bribe Geoff with a beer to let us sit on Nic for a bit until he talks. You know, just like we used to with Mi-” Chloe swallowed suddenly as she realized what she had been about to say. Max had never once met Mikey North, much less been present for their antics.  _ I need to find him,  _ she thought to herself. “Like when we wanted to get something out of one of us when we were kids.” If Max noticed her slip up or thought anything of it the woman didn't comment. Instead, still sounding a bit amused she shook her head.

 

“Maybe,” Max told her. “You know, you got really into all of this.” The statement didn't sound judgmental, if anything the look on Max's face when she shot a glance sideways and her pale lips again quirked up, was pleasant surprise.

 

“Hell yeah,” Chloe admitted, openly. “No wonder Steph sent it to me. I was just in a shitty mood when it all started.” Chloe paused to ponder how best to continue, not to mention to throw a foot up onto the dash like the uncouth hillbilly she knew she was in the eyes of most Seattleites. Max's response was to finally squeeze where their hands met. Chloe swept her beanie off her head and settled it on the dash next to her right foot. This car felt a little on the cramped side. Slowly, Chloe gathered her thoughts and realized that finally, she was turning away from the “I guess I wrote it off as part of Steph's weird Arcadia Bay obsession and didn't look closely enough at it. I know I shouldn't have judged her. It was her home for sixteen fucking years.” Max shrugged and nodded, making a face as if to say that she had a good point. Chloe pulled at the belt across her shoulder without really thinking about it.

 

“If I'd never come back to Arcadia Bay and I found out that it was destroyed, I'd probably be a little messed up by it, too,” Max replied in her soft voice, the delicate one that suggested delicate topics were being addressed. Chloe didn't want to give voice to the thought that rose in her head at this, but she knew it was true: if Max hadn't come back to Arcadia Bay she would be dead and the town would have never been destroyed.  _ If I was supposed to die in Arcadia Bay, am I living on borrowed time?  _ she wondered as, unbidden, she recalled Max's description of the car accident which had nearly taken her life in Los Angeles. Apparently her line of thinking was not unique to her, because Max's hand had gone lax in hers again and over the sound of some drug-influenced and airy sounding song which had started off talking about, strangely, copulating banana slugs, Chloe could hear whatever Max was going to say catch in her throat. It almost sounded as if the woman was choking on her words. The woman hurtling them south at seventy miles-per-hour went pale, as if all of the blood in her body had rushed out and then fell quiet. Chloe followed a chain of causality in her mind back not to the terrifying moments in the girls restroom at Blackwell with a gun being waved in her face, but back to the day that Rachel first disappeared, when Chloe had decided she would do whatever it took to find the girl and get them both out of Arcadia Bay. Chloe's fate had been sealed  _ that  _ day and it had taken Max swooping in with super powers to stop it in its tracks. She cast about wildly in her mind for a topic of conversation as Max untwined their hands ejected the burned mix CD.

 

“Could you grab the disc from the third slot in my case?” Chloe swallowed and when her throat still felt dry she decided not to risk answering out loud. The disc in question, the one she was replacing the one with the odd tune about banana slugs, was labeled Carrol & Lowell and Chloe thought it was a new one. She certainly didn't recognize it by sight, at least. Not looking up at Max for the moment, Chloe switched the two discs and let the player begin trying to read the new CD. Chloe cast about for another topic and slowly lowered her booted right foot from the dash to the floorboard. Putting it up really had not made the small cramp in her leg any better. She would just feel better, at least slightly, when she could stand for a while.

 

“So, Danny was at the meeting last night,” she finally settled on. No color returned to her girlfriend's cheeks but she did perk up slightly, and some poor mirror of a smile tried to rise to the surface of her face. Chloe's smirk at this was genuine. She knew Max felt for the boy.

 

“How's he doing?” the woman asked her.

 

“Well, I told you he'd been absent for a couple of weeks, but he's okay. I guess he was just kind of busy and not feeling up to the group. His mother's been helping him get on T.” Max nodded and though the relief was brief and fleeting (she really did not know the boy, after all, save for their one or two conversations) it was genuine enough that it made Chloe shake her head at the woman.

 

“Good,” Max told her. “Good.” For a moment Max paused and listened to the lyrics of the song filling the cabin and then said, “you know, I was watching you talk to him that night. Did I ever tell you that my girlfriend has the biggest heart in the world?”

 

“Did I ever tell you that mine's a sappy ass nerd?” Chloe deadpanned back. This earned her a frown, but she responded by squeezing the woman's hand. Max turned her attention back to the road for the moment, but Chloe was distracted by the song. It wasn't that it was inherently bad, no worse or better than anything else Max played, but she had caught onto the lyrics of the song over the last minute or two and now that her attention was turned on it, it was beginning to make her slightly uncomfortable. This was mostly because the song seemed to be about someone's mother dying. “What even is this song?”

 

“Death with Dignity,” Max replied, offhandedly. It took the space of about two seconds for Max's face to change to a sort of dawning comprehension and then the photographer tried to free her hand from Chloe's, as if to change the song. Chloe held tightly and did not let her. She wasn't about to be a downer all over Max's downer music, if that made any sense.

 

“It's alright,” she promised. “I wasn't trying to make a big deal about it.”

 

“It's not okay, we both deserve to be happy.” Chloe laughed at that. Happy was not going to be even a vague possibility. It took the brunette some convincing and Chloe did her best to try to distract Max from the idea of ejecting her CD by making her laugh, but eventually Max got her right hand free by claiming that it was cramping and, finally, Chloe watched her pop the CD from the player. Following the photographer's instructions, Chloe found a CD toward the back of Max's plain, black case which was a mix of alt rock she had made Max about a year ago. At the very least it was going to carry a little more depth than 'my mom is dead and hey, that's sad'.

 

Chloe really did not perk up again until they came off of the interstate finally, to a coastal highway which led straight through Arcadia Bay and beyond to the town of Edgeton, which was where they had reserved two rooms for three nights. The feeling of returning to her decimated hometown had crossed from unpleasant and guilt inducing to something near panic in the pit of her stomach. To be fair, it had begun before they had finally reached that coastal highway, but now that she was within sight of the ocean it reached a fevered pitch. Chloe's response was to ball her hands into fists in her lap, curl her toes inside of her boots and clamp her jaw shut. If she did not move or speak, if she kept her focus entirely on staying calm, then she  _ would  _ stay calm long enough to reach the hotel and take a breather. Somehow, an emotional breakdown in a car felt a lot worse than one behind solid walls and closed doors. 

 

“It's nearly over,” Max said, in her quiet, soft voice. Chloe latched onto it. When she had first seen Max after her return to Arcadia Bay, Chloe had marked that as a strange change. Max had always had the tendency to be soft spoken when things were delicate, but this had been rather extreme. For a time the voice had completely disappeared and Max had tried to speak in a projecting, confident tone. Now, Chloe was not sure if that had been a sign of Max's attempts to overcompensate for how upset she was or not, but since coming out of the hospital some months ago, it had made its return. That voice kept out of certain areas of their life and Chloe appreciated that, but in others it was all too common. Chloe took it mean, in this case, that Max was thinking more about her concern for Chloe than herself. That being said, the tension had begun to return to the photographer's body. Chloe could see it in the way Max sat and the straight angles she held her arms and neck at at all times. Not even the music playing from the disc Chloe had made her was doing anything for Max. It wasn't doing anything for Chloe, either. They might as well have sat in silence, listening to the engine or the tires on the road.

 

“No,” Chloe told her, sucking in a sharp breath as she did so. “This is just the beginning.” For the next several minutes their voices stayed silent. Chloe took it to mean that Max could not find an angle from which to argue with her and as for Chloe she had gone back to making sure that she did not let out the ball of aggressive grief rolling around inside of her. Max was the first of them to speak, telling Chloe to check out a sign approaching ahead of them. Bright orange, it declared that part of the highway ahead was closed and they would be sent through a detour. It was a detour which, judging by the mile marker associated with it, looked to begin just before Arcadia Bay.  _ They never cleared the main road. They never opened Arcadia Bay back up at all. _

 

That was alright, though. The town had so many back roads that the four of them were sure to find a way in, even if they had to get out and walk. Chloe had not been a fan of this idea to begin with but now that they were what amounted to fifteen miles outside of Arcadia Bay, she was not going to be turned back by roadblocks, barriers or fences. _ None of that bullshit,  _ she told herself, seizing onto the determination as it fought against the unpleasant cocktail of other emotions she was going to have to deal with. Chloe dug her phone from her pocket and decided it would probably be smart to give their soon-to-be companions a heads up.

 

_ Me _

_ Highway detour arnd Arcadia Bay. Will meet u 2 at the motel _

 

_ Nic _

_ Gotcha, gotcha. _

 

Chloe blinked at the response. Before, Nic had always been short, maybe even terse and professional over text. This was short, certainly, but it had been a quick and seemingly uncharacteristic response.

 

“You going to be okay?” Chloe asked Max as the sign indicating that they were nearing the detour came up several minutes later.

 

“Yeah,” Max promised her. “I've just never driven the backroads, myself.” Sure enough, the highway spilled out onto a road which must have been paved in response to the detour, because when Chloe had last been in this part of Oregon the road had been about five feet thinner, a tiny gravel road which no one who did not live in the area would have wanted to look at for long, much less go down. Some land clearing had been in order. Trees had been cut away at the sides of the road and in some cases their stumps still stood in testament to the fallen flora. Max made a tsking sound as they passed one very large stump whose tree must have once been old and impressive. Now that the road had been paved and was being maintained, no tree which hung over it seemed to be safe.  _ Is this really going to be cheaper than cleaning up part of Arcadia Bay? Or better? It's gotta cost more. _

 

“Ugh,” Chloe mused, “I think we're going to end up passing pretty close to Bruss just to get to Edgeton. That's fucking absurd.”

 

“No one's going to want to cough up the cash to clean up an entire town,” Max muttered, sounding a little bit offended. “They're gonna have to make a decision soon, there's no way they can leave this highway like this. Has to be bad for tourism.” There weren't a ton of reasons to come to Arcadia Bay's neck of the woods. Taking a coastal tour of Oregon, seeing the sea, stopping at beaches and eating fresh seafood at roadside restaurants was more or less the major appeal of the area. That was why the highway ran along the coast as often as it could. This long, almost certainly looping northward detour had to be a turn off for roadtrippers. Chloe craned her neck a few minutes later and even rolled the window down so that she could stick her head out. Even squinting as hard as she could, there was not a point where Chloe could make out anything that might have been related to Arcadia Bay, not even an old sign. She did think, though, that if they were about five miles closer to what had once been the center of town, she might have been able to see the old lighthouse sticking up from the top of the cliff through the thick treeline. All in all, it might have added twenty minutes to their trip, but eventually this detour did as promised and spat them out in the small, dying town called Edgeton, Oregon. Once a factory town, it was now suffering from a lack of jobs, a lack of fresh money flowing in, much like many factory towns in the area, much like Arcadia Bay itself had.

 

It was not awkward to enter the town and find the motel in near silence because Edgeton was so tiny that it took them no time at all to cross it and find, with the help of a built in GPS system, a squat, two-story brick building in a rough U-shape. They pulled into the parking lot and Chloe considered whether or not she had ever paid the building any attention on those rare occasions she had come to Edgeton. She could not remember having done so. Thick looking and dark green with peeling paint, the door to room 14 beckoned for her, so while Max checked them in Chloe unloaded their three bags, the cooler packed with ice from a stop just after their breakfast food extravaganza and, finally, two large cases of cheap, mercifully intoxicating beer. By the time they had taken turns in the restroom and shower and planted themselves out in front of their room in two of several thin, plastic chairs which sat spread all around the front of the building (even on the walkway around the second floor) their companions for the next couple of days had arrived. Chloe looked up at the truck as it pulled up, and spotted Nic through the windshield.

 

“Did you remember to put some of the beer on ice?” Max asked her as Chloe squinted to see what was waiting for them in driver’s seat of the truck, behind the wheel.

 

“Of course I did,” Chloe snorted. She was a little bit offended that Max would ever assume that she, of all people, would be so uncouth as to abuse her position as the one in charge of entertainment as to forget to chill the beer. Chloe leaned forward. Either she needed glasses or she was already getting tired. 

 

“What if it's not Geoff? What if it's that MK chick? I don't want you to have any ideas about leaving me.” 

 

“That'd be a dumb idea, though, wouldn't it?” Chloe asked, grinning. She spotted the driver and, admitted to herself that when he was very clearly a man in his thirties, she was only a tiny bit disappointed.


	5. The Rendezvous

Disclaimer: I own the rights to more or less nothing seen here, nothing from Life is Strange or the Public Radio Alliance or Pacific Northwest Stories. This is entirely a fanbased work for personal enjoyment. 

* * *

 

#  Chapter Five: The Rendezvous

 

_ It's Geoff's world, you just live there.  _ Nic grinned to himself as he leaned back in the passenger seat of the relatively new SUV. There was junkfood, there was a twelve pack of water and there was music, music of surprisingly wide varieties. Nic shamelessly unwrapped a twinkie freed from the box sitting on the dashboard. Despite being in fairly good shape, Geoff was apparently not shy about junk food.  _ Fuck it,  _ he told himself, taking a bite from the heavily processed sugary snack. It wasn't as if he had anything else to do during this particularly long trip. He had never been any good about reading or writing in a moving vehicle, well, save for maybe a plane.

 

“Ahah,” Geoff declared from behind the wheel of the Chevy Traverse which had carried them this far into the potentially ill fated and ill advised trip. “That's the spirit,” the man told him, wearing that laid back grin which Nic still did not trust to be entirely on the level. “Fucking finally, you've been having no fun for a couple of hours now.”

 

“It's not like this is all about fun,” Nic retorted from the passenger seat, his left leg crossed over the top of his right for the moment to stretch muscles which were otherwise aching from sitting still so long. Unfortunately, he was still holding the better part of a twinkie in his hand as he spoke. He realized that whatever point he had been about to make was most certainly not being made from any kind of high ground. Nic thought that he was better off enjoying his snack and giving Geoff his victory, whether it was wholeheartedly celebrated or simply part of his 'I'm so chilled out' act. He chewed the spongy treat and considered that, just as there were things that one could experience as a child that were so much worse to the child's mind than the adults, the same could be true in reverse. The twinkie, for instance, was sweet and kind of novel considering that Nic did not usually eat sweets, but young, child Nic had failed to give him fair warning about the fact that after a couple of bites he would want something to drink. _ What a brat. _ Nic had been given some very basic instructions upon getting into Geoff's truck that morning around eleven and pulling away from Geoff's home. Nic was to work the GPS if it shut off or somehow messed up, he was to choose whatever music or none as he desired, 'talk shit' with Geoff about whatever he might want but never, ever to drive the truck.

 

Nic had not asked why. It had seemed better at the time to leave Geoff in the state he had been in in that moment: surprisingly carefree for a Tanis excursion and even a little entertained by the concept of a road trip. Despite all of his traveling for Pacific Northwest Stories, the Public Radio Alliance and the various specific projects he had worked on for those organizations and on his own, Nic had never gotten the appeal of the long road trip. Even their five and a half to six hour trip to Arcadia Bay or, more specifically a town near where it once stood, had seemed daunting as he and Geoff had left the city of Seattle behind.  _ Not daunting,  _ he told himself,  _ tedious. _ There was plenty of room for both his head and legs and even Geoff, somewhat taller than Nic himself, seemed comfortable. Nic didn't find most of Geoff's music selection objectionable at all. In short, it should not have been tedious at all, except for one particular problem.

 

The problem did not lie with Geoff who, at the moment, was hurrying them through the second half of their journey at nearly eighty-five miles per hour. When Geoff was not in a pensive mood or feeling extremely quiet, something rare, he was excellent company. Nic, on the other hand, was the problem. He had spent entirely too much of the trip in dead silence, wrapped up in his thoughts, in Tanis, in the Cabin, the Calm and, finally, in Arcadia Bay. It didn't matter how talkative Geoff was or was not, Nic was just completely and totally absorbed by the mystery in within his head. That had been, Nic realized as he dropped the wrapper for his snack into a plastic bag at his feet, precisely what Geoff had meant by 'fucking finally'. All in all, Geoff had been fairly calm about everything, from Nic being bad company to being reminded that in the end there was as much of a chance that this whole thing would be completely and utterly unrelated to Tanis as there was of the opposite. He didn't even seem to think too much of the danger inherent in following strangers into a completely abandoned disaster zone.

 

_ Well, it's not like this is the first time he's followed me somewhere dangerous.  _ For the most part, what he had ascertained about his companion over these last few months boiled down to the fact that Geoff's military or ex-military status remained a large part of his life. Whether that was mostly because Geoff had to use those ties in his pursuit of Tanis, Nic wasn't sure. The man only spoke of the people he cooperated with in rare, vague references. Usually even when Geoff did find himself talking he shut up very quickly about whatever it was he had been about to let slip. Nic had only managed to ascertain a couple of proper nouns about the world Geoff lived and worked in and they were clearly nicknames or callsigns: Euclid, a man who Geoff had once asked for help with getting detailed satellite imagery of a certain, familiar area in the woods of the Pacific Northwest and Keter, whose gender and function in Geoff's quest to understand Tanis Nic was unsure of. As of yet, Geoff had yet to let slip any place names, but Nic was fairly certain that the man took frequent trips out of town. How far out of town, Nic couldn't begin to guess.

 

Apparently deciding that a twinkie had not been  _ enough _ fun, an hour later Geoff had informed Nic that they were both in the need of something substantial before they reached the rendezvous point. Nic didn't have the heart to ask if this was because Geoff was genuinely hungry or because the man intended to drink well into the night. Something about Chloe Price's attitude over the phone the last few times they had spoken suggested she had had a pretty good idea about who Nic was bringing with him and was ready to try to drink the man under the table. Geoff had some weight on the woman, though. Unless she was something of a serious alcoholic, Nic did not see her keeping pace with Geoff indefinitely, if they were to choose to do something as asinine as get competitive in drinking. The thing with Geoff though, was that however legitimate his care free attitude was, he seemed the type to see a challenge as a challenge.  _ Hopefully everyone maintains a level of professionalism today,  _ he mused to himself after agreeing with Geoff mostly so that they could get the meal over with. It wasn't as if he  _ wasn't _ hungry.  _ Who am I kidding? _ Due to the fact that Geoff wanted to talk about 'Tanis stuff' Nic thusly found himself eating a greasy 'Thickburger', mostly at Geoff's insistence. Nic had only asked for fries and a pop.

 

Given the topic of conversation slated for the meal, Nic's digital recorder sat on the dashboard of the truck, roughly between them as they ate. Considering that they were going to be talking as they ate, chances were decent he was going to scrap the conversation anyway, but there was no telling where a revelation was going to come from. Geoff would not be the most unlikely source of information or even source of a good question that Nic had taken advantage of since starting his quest for Tanis months ago. Nic was feeling a little bit twitchy: they had pulled off of interstate onto a coastal highway only a few minutes ago. To Nic this meant that they were nearly there. Stopping, even for food, was beginning to feel like delaying a trip to the dentist or something else not quite world shattering but at least inevitable and not entirely pleasant. His only choice in the matter was to finish the bite of the aptly named cheeseburger in his mouth and 'talk about Tanis stuff'.

 

“What's going on in there?” Geoff asked him as Nic picked up the cool, condensation covered paper cup and from the console in front of him, took one large, cold sweet drink and settled the coke back into its holder. “You can't be this quiet if you want to be asking questions and doing interviews and things like that, am I right? I'm no reporter but it sounds like to me you're going to need to be on your game.” Geoff punctuated this with an emphatic, and extremely large, bite out of the burger in his hand. The man's free hand gestured vaguely toward Nic's chest, causing him to look down and spot some of his meal which had wandered off course during its own trip.

 

“You're right,” Nic admitted, picking a piece of lettuce off of his dark jacket and settling it in the impromptu trash bag still at his feet. He ran a napkin across the spot, but apparently the offending flora had not brought sauce of any variety with it on its little escape mission. “I guess I've just been thinking.”

 

“Thinking?” Geoff prompted. Nic tilted his head and considered exactly how to answer. “There's kind of a lot of shit going on at once, buddy. You're going to have to be more specific than that.” Geoff wasn't wrong. While in the moment, sitting in a fairly modern SUV with the heat going, warm food in his stomach and a bit of caffeine beginning to work his way through the system, Nic felt calmer than he had all day. Yet, only about fifty miles away, a mystery waited for him in the form of a freshly ruined modern city and two women who might have had experiences not unlike his own. There was a lot to think about. That was probably why Nic had spent the last four hours and change not really talking much and even engaging with music only rarely.

 

“I guess I'm considering the implications of Arcadia Bay, Oregon actually being Tanis related. I've been thinking about nothing else for about a day straight, now. I've heard of Tanis or supposedly Tanis-adjacent phenomena causing people to clear out of small towns, to move and there are myths about massacres, violence, about people changing and turning on their families but I've really never heard of a Tanis related phenomena leveling a city.” Nic had had this conversation already with MK, but ultimately he had been left feeling unsatisfied and a bit disturbed. His brief conversation with Geoff that night hadn't helped any at all. Nic hated to sound like a broken record, but he was kind of a broken record. “I mean, there was a myth about a massacre that emptied out a settlement which sounded like it was related to Eld Fen, but physically leveling a town is new. It's like I said the other day, this would mean that Tanis can destroy civilizations. Even a modern one like our own.” Geoff nodded as if to prompt Nic to continue. That was the problem though: he could not continue. There was no end to that train of thought. It simply went in circles from there, a track where someone had not thrown a very necessary switch.

 

“I mean, it's some scary shit,” Geoff agreed. Nic opened his mouth to muse that Karl van Sant had clearly been aware of the anomalous properties of Tanis but had not been scared of them. He stopped himself. They talked about Karl fairly often in the context of Tanis, but Geoff otherwise liked to talk around his deceased brother. Nic didn't know precisely what to make of that, but he didn't like to bring the man up unless he had a specific question about him.

 

“Most of the time, the people I meet don't seem to be talking about the danger involved with this. Or more, they talk about it in theoreticals.” Unsure what else to say in the moment, he mused, “I guess theoreticals are all there is to talk about, where Tanis is concerned.” Nic took a small drink of his coke.  _ It's not like people go around saying, 'hey, Nic, if you keep chasing Tanis you'll die.' I mean, it's not like people  _ other than  _ Cameron Ellis goes around saying that.  _ Even then, Cameron Ellis spoke in vague terms, told him that the answers to all of his questions were too complicated or 'not my department' and rarely gave him any clear responses. Everything, with Cameron Ellis was in the theoretical.

 

“You know, you don't have to pretend.” While his voice was still amiable enough, Geoff looked serious. His normally smooth forehead wrinkled a bit as his brow furrowed and he lowered the hand clutching his own burger onto the unrolled wrapper in his lap.

 

“Pretend what?”

 

“Buddy, when I first met you you talked about Tanis in what-ifs. You don't do that anymore. You don't have to pretend that you haven't decided it's real, or at least that something is.” Strangely enough, this was more unsettling than the idea of Tanis as the cause of a town-wrecking tornado. The idea that Nic had changed even the way he talked about Tanis with other people even without realizing it was a little hard to swallow. When he was alone and in thought about Tanis there was almost no question that he spoke of it in absolutes. Tanis, or something that had inspired the stories about Tanis, was real, end of story. He might have even opened up to MK on that surety but he had not intended to make it the default manner in which he spoke of Tanis. _ Past the point of no return. _

 

“Well, I was somewhere for a week,” Nic muttered and then took a bite of his burger. His mood had only faltered for a second, but he pushed the frustration and confusion down. This was not something to get tripped up on, this was something to confront. Alex had already told him she thought he was flushing his objectivity, something which, quite frankly, she had all the reason in the world to recognize considering the fact that when it came to Richard Strand and The Black Tapes she had done a long time ago.

 

“You were somewhere,” Geoff agreed, looking a little grim for the first time all trip. Now that they were nearly in Arcadia Bay, it seemed that it was time for things to get serious. Nic wished he had been in the mood to partake in some of the light hearted atmosphere Geoff had tried to push on him, but he just had not been.  “But I mean, you really seem to believe in Tanis at this point. “

 

“I'm supposed to maintain objectivity, but you're right,” Nic promised the man. “I've been talking about Tanis in more concrete terminology. It has definitely put me in the mindset that Tanis is this actual thing, or place or maybe even person that these legends are based off of.” He supposed, now that the line was so firmly crossed, the best thing to do would be to own up to it. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to consider himself as maintaining any kind of journalistic integrity if he did. “I guess the narrative of the podcast is going to change a little bit.” 

 

“Is that necessarily a bad thing?” Geoff queried. Nic paused, his cup halfway to his mouth and considered that question.

 

“A bad thing?”

 

“You're clearly sold on Tanis,” the vet told him. “I'm just wondering: is being honest about that actually a bad thing?”

 

“I'm not sure I'm  _ sold  _ on it, exactly,” he told the man. “More that I am having trouble finding an excuse not to believe it?”

 

“You could've fooled me,” Geoff replied, apparently unconcerned that Nic had not answered his question. As with many things Geoff asked him the point seemed to be to make him think as much as to get an answer. Under other circumstances he might assume Geoff was trying to take up a borderline mentorial role for Nic. These were not other circumstances and Nic was not aligned with any kind of military or intelligence peoples, outside of Geoff himself. He was sure there were still things he could learn from his friend, but doubted there was much Geoff would have wanted to teach. He was going to need to consider the implications of Geoff's point.

 

“So, they're probably at the motel by now,” Nic informed Geoff. He had been keeping a mental clock throughout most of the trip, well aware that even having stopped off for food a bit earlier than they themselves had, the girls had had a significant lead on the two of them. Nic had not seen either of them since showing up unannounced at their home, however from a couple of conversations since then he had been given to understand that both of the women were now onboard with this trip and so he did not foresee anything slowing them down in getting to the motel. Nic finished consuming what was left of his burger, fairly greasy on the whole but not unpleasant and then, picking at his fries, he continued speaking. “I'm not sure what tonight's going to be like but there was talk of sitting down with a beer and getting to know one another. If it will make them more comfortable talking to us tomorrow, I look forward to it.”

 

“What do you expect to find when we get there?” Geoff asked him, still sounding and holding himself very seriously. Apparently, play time was over. If Geoff wanted to get down to business, that was fine. It would, at the least, distract Nic from some nerves over consequences the conversation they had just finished.

 

“Well, they seemed pretty normal to me,” Nic told him, “a little upset by me asking questions and, well it showed in really different ways. Chloe Price was a bit angry, a bit aggressive, and the other one, Max Caulfield just got kind of emotional. They kept trying ot let on that they had some big, unbelievable secret, thought.”

 

“A secret?” Was it a bad sign if Nic was asking these questions of him? Open ended questioning was usually his job in situations like this. If anyone ever questioned him in such a manner, it was Dr. Bernier, not that he usually had answers that satisfied either her or himself.

 

“I'm not sure. I don't know whether or not I believe them, but the stories that came out of Arcadia Bay right before the tornado hit were so weird that maybe there's more to them.”

 

“Well,” Geoff mused as he wadded up his burger wrapper and passed it to Nic to trash, “the weird stuff is on you. I'm here to keep you safe and maybe ask questions if you don't.” Nic nodded his agreement but he looked for a hint of confusion, amusement or doubt on the man's face. _ It must sound ridiculous to Geoff, to show him a picture of these two and then ask him to come play bodyguard.  _ The largest of the two women probably still had a fifty pound deficit on Nic. Beyond Geoff, Nic spotted one or two more cars pour into the parking lot they were still sitting in. Apparently, it was getting close to time for dinner. Nic was actually rather glad when Geoff started the car and got them out of the crowding lot without pausing to give Nic any shit for wanting someone to come along for a little muscle. Geoff understood. He always understood.

 

 _Or maybe he thinks I'm an idiot._ Certainly, Geoff had joined Meerkatnip and Alex in rightly questioning his objectivity on the issue. He would also have first hand experience in Nic's occasional lack of savvy since the first time they had really paired up on one of these investigations had been brought about entirely by Geoff's concern that Nic would allow himself to be drugged by a pair of crazy cultists, again. _Honestly, if he doesn't think I'm a tiny bit of an idiot by now, he's the idiot._ Nic laughed at that, but as they hit the highway again and Nic turned his attention to the ocean, Geoff did not ask what he found so funny. Then again it wasn't so much funny as it was that Nic was a little nervous about the approaching meeting. If it all went badly and they were sent home without any new information, Nic was going to feel bad for all parties involved.

 

“There we are,” Geoff muttered. Around forty minutes before reaching the small town of Edgeton, Nic was distracted from trying to keep an eye on the ocean through the thickening trees by the first bright orange sign declaring that a significant detour was coming up. “It looks like we're almost there.”

 

“Almost,” Nic agreed as he pulled his phone from his jacket pocket.

 

_ Me _

_ Almost there, just about to hit the detour around the city. _

 

  1. _Price_



_ Will be rdy _

 

_ Me _

_ We'll need time to stretch our legs and check in and all that. _

 

  1. _Price_



_ Understood _

 

“So, did they make it safe?” Confused, Nic realized he had not particularly done a good job keeping Geoff apprised of how things were going with their trip. After all, if he was going to rely on Geoff so heavily, the man should probably be given information as soon as it became available, at least as it pertained to their trip. “The girls we're going to meet.”

 

“Yeah,” Nic said, before clearing his throat. “They made it a bit ago. I'm sorry, I didn't realize I hadn't told you.”

 

“It's all good,” the man responded. Then, Geoff did something he rarely did: he sighed in frustration. Maybe it  _ wasn't  _ all good.

 

“What's wrong?”

 

“I don't mind long drives or anything,” Geoff told him, flexing his hands along the top of the wheel and then notably shifting his left leg as if it ached. “I just get itchy right before an operation starts. Reminds me of the old days. The amount of time you can actually spend staring at a clock under certain circumstances is fucking annoying, man.” Nic smirked lightly.

 

“We're not on a military operation, Geoff.”

 

“Are you sure about that?” the brunet queried, turning dark, sharp eyes on him. “We're on a clandestine trip to the middle of nowhere to rendezvous with a potential asset whose trustworthiness we have to assess on site. Meanwhile, you're a high value individual whose safety needs to be guaranteed in order to complete this operation and your overall mission, which is ultimately vital to  _ both  _ of us.” Nic held up his hands as if to say fine, he saw Geoff's point, but the man continued. “I hate to say it, but I've been through this before. I expect less in the way of ambushes and shootouts in the street, but I  _ am  _ ready for them.” This gave Nic pause. He did not see any particular sign of a weapon on the man but then, Geoff had been sitting down in the driver's seat of his truck waiting when Nic had arrived at the man's place that morning. Geoff could have been packing something.  _ Or he could have something packed away. _

 

Meanwhile, Nic paid attention to the wording involved. Geoff had basically just stated openly for the first time that Nic's 'mission', his hunt for Tanis was vital to the other man, as well. Nic had suspected as much since their second or third conversation over a few beers together, but had never had any outright confirmation before. Geoff craved answers about his brother's death and had come to be consumed by the mystery of Tanis as a side effect.  _ Geoff's all in on this,  _ Nic considered. He wasn't sure when he had begun to trust Geoff as close to implicitly as he trusted MK.  _ For that matter, when did I start to trust MK like that? Maybe from the very start?  _ He tried to ignore the scenery which became easier as they pulled farther from the coast but every single attempt to get lost into his few written notes was met with abject failure. He was, however, pulled from a reverie of his thoughts, his concerns about the future of the Tanis podcast and maybe even his employment with the Public Radio Alliance, much less TeslaNova.

 

“Now that looks about right.” Nic looked up from the page he had been staring at for an indeterminate amount of time and found himself taking in the front of a short, brick building. He blinked and turned his head. They were parked in a small lot full mostly of old clunkers, save for the brand new, dark blue Ford Fiesta to their left. There, sitting no more than three feet away from the nose of the vehicle in question were the faces of Chloe Price and Max Caulfield, familiar in that way that only being seen frequently in photographs could provide: Nic felt that he knew their faces in the basics, but there was always more to a person than photographs along showed.

 

_ Geoff shut off his truck and I took in both Max Caulfield and Chloe Price. They were sitting in a pair of old plastic chairs outside of what I assumed was their hotel room. Max waved. Chloe popped open a beer as it to make a toast. _

 

“ _ I'm getting a pretty good impression of these two,” Geoff joked and then opened his door. Without saying or doing anything else, both of the women got up and went into their room. I thought they were being a bit eccentric, but as anyone who has listened to Tanis this far knows, they are not the most eccentric people I have to interact with. I let Geoff check us in and – of course, we got the room right next to theirs. It took us a while to unload our bags and then Geoff declared he needed the shower. _

 

“ _ I guess that's a pretty good idea.” While I waited for him to finish, I texted Chloe Price to let her know we would be over after we had had time to get settle. She replied that she was keeping the better part of a twenty-four pack on ice for us and that we had things to talk about. I told her that I guess we did. At that point, I was still pretty nervous that what might be waiting for me a room over was more of the same hostility I had been on the receiving end of when I first met the women. I doubted that the taller of the two would be armed with a wrench, this time. I hoped not, at the very least. _

 

Nic thought that the moments leading up to an interview with a potentially flighty subject were not unlike the afternoon before a big date. For one thing, he found himself often doing as he was in the moment, staring into the mirror above the dresser and rubbing at his eyes. He looked as if he hadn't been sleeping well.  _ That's because I haven't.  _ At least he didn't have to worry about projecting any false images of himself as put together and intimidating. To be intimidated by someone who looked as close to passing out on their feet as he thought his reflection showed him to be would take quite a bit of work. The last two nights had been essentially sleepless and since he had canceled his appointment with Dr. Bernier for the next day, well, Nic just thought he was going to have to rely some potent sleep aids that evening if he wanted to be with it enough for a trip into the ruins of Arcadia Bay.

 

He was about to give up any attempt to see himself as anything other than exhausted and text MK and Alex when the bathroom door opened and Geoff emerged, half dressed and towling off. Nic didn't feel envy at the sight as much as he did a sense of disappointment in himself. Nearly a decade older than him, Geoff was in better shape by far. He wasn't sure how well the man would do running  _ marathons  _ but when it came to endurance runs Geoff looked as if he would certainly be his better. The man paused to nod at him, back to being a little business-like and then made for his bag. As for Nic, he rose from the end of his bed, pulled his assorted clothing and toiletries bag from his luggage and stretched.

 

“That was quick,” Nic observed.

 

“Yep,” came the succinct reply. It wasn't a terse response, just a quick acknowledgment of a statement that really did not need a response. Nic shoved his toiletries bag under his left arm and made for the bathroom without hesitation. Once behind the closed door, he wiped condensation from the mirror above the sink and checked himself closer. For a moment, he actually considered shaving the stubble from his face. It had been almost a week since the last time he had taken a razor to it. However, that seemed like even more time spent unnecessarily delaying their meeting ( _ or, drinking I guess _ ) so he simply stripped off his clothes and showered, intent on doing everything but shave to make himself look half presentable. This was, after all, a professional situation even if it  _ did _ involve alcohol in the kind of motel room that had almost certainly seen any number of shady happenings throughout its lifespan.

 

At this point, Geoff, who had been talking to him through a door which he had cracked open after getting dressed, peeked through. Nic had only been fighting with his hair for the better part of two or three minutes but apparently that had been more than long enough. Geoff didn't have a lot of room to judge him on that front, though: the man might not have been rocking a buzz cut but his hair was short enough that there was not much work involved in making it look presentable. The downside to choosing to have longer hair than most men was taking the time to not look like Ozzy Osbourne after a rager in the eighties.  _ Not that my hair's that long. _

 

“It looks fine,” Geoff said, matter-of-factly. “Let's go. It's H-Hour.” Nic assumed two things: first, Geoff was going to try to use as much obsolete military jargon as possible to either annoy Nic or make him laugh and, two, that H-Hour meant that it was time to get going. Whatever the case, he ran his hands through his hair once more, not caring whether the man rolled his eyes at him or not and then abandoned his brush on the counter beside the bag carrying his shaving kit and a few other essentials. They stepped from their bedroom and Nic watched with some amusement as Geoff shut the door and then attempted to get in without their keycard. When the door handle wouldn't turn, the man appeared satisfied so Nic walked the few feet to the door of room 15 and knocked loudly.

 

“It's Nic,” he called into the thick wooden door. Up close, the green paint had begun to peel from years of exposure to the elements. As with many things about the motel they were staying in, Nic wasn't sure the door had been given any special attention in a long time. A cool burst of wind in the winter's afternoon caught his slightly damp hair and Nic shivered enough to reflexively try to pull his jacket tighter around him. This jacket had been made for, at the most, a cool fall evening. It did not stand up well to winter temperatures and as the day moved closer to sundown he knew it was going to just get colder.  _ Maybe I should dig out that old long coat of mine. _

 

“No shit, Sherlock,” came a response from behind the door. He recognized Chloe's voice and glanced sideways to Geoff, who had put his good natured face back into place. For the moment, Geoff looked amused. Nic had seen him go from amused to angry before on one occasion and hoped he did not have cause to see such a transformation tonight. Geoff didn't seem like the type to let Chloe being a bit of a smartass get to him. After all, he  _ had  _ told Nic on a couple of occasions that he would like to meet MK.  _ And I'm pretty certain MK's said that to me a couple of times. _ “Give me a second.” The sound of a chain being drawn back followed the deadlock turning. Apparently Chloe Price held little confidence in the neighborhood they were staying in for the weekend, herself.  _ Or she doesn't trust us. _

 

Nic got a glimpse of the room behind the women when the door finally swung open. It had the same green and yellow patterned carpet, similar reprints of amateur paintings along the pale beige walls and just about as many bags stacked at the foot of one bed as he and Geoff had brought along, themselves. For the most part, it was identical to their own room. While Chloe definitely stood closest to them as the door opened, dressed up like the punk she often presented herself in in the few photos of her that the internet had been able to get its hands on, it was her partner Max Caulfield who had opened the door. Where the girl with the bright blue hair stood with a beer clenched in her right hand and her left behind her back ( _ why?)  _ the brunette giving him a nervous half-smile held onto the edge of the door before stepping aside. When next someone spoke, it was Chloe again, her voice low and laced with a kind of playfulness.

 

“Geoff, I presume?” she asked the man standing to Nic's left. Her voice was not the way he had remembered it, so he assumed that the woman was mimicking someone or something he had not caught onto.

 

“Geoff van Sant,” the ex-soldier introduced himself, right arm extending. Chloe Price's left came around from behind her back to shake Geoff's proffered hand. Oddly enough, Max looked extremely, almost exorbitantly relieved by this, so Nic chose to take it as a sign that at least one of the women was as nervous about this whole thing as Chloe had been angry the last time they had met. Geoff snorted as they shook hands and while it earned him a curious look from the woman greeting him, Max did not look to be further affected. Nic did not know what was so funny but thought it might derail the moment to ask. Chloe stepped aside, pulling a beanie down farther over her hair so that only the bright blue ends stuck out beneath the dark fabric. They were beckoned inside by the shorter of the two women, so Nic stepped in first. He saw that the small table in the corner of the room had been moved to the center and was surrounded on four sides by chairs. (One had been made for the table, another was the office chair which should have sat at a desk in the farthest corner and two of the others were the same cheap plastic seats the women had been sitting in when they had arrived.)

 

Nic waited for Geoff to enter and their hosts to sit down before he chose to do the same. It was only basic manners, after all. As the door shut behind Geoff, Nic spotted a cooler resting near the table and noted that the television was off but every light in the room, including those from the bathroom, was on. It was definitely time to get down to business. Nic put his hand in his pocket, which was all the gesture it took to make Max's attention shift from Geoff to him. Slowly, Nic freed his recorder so as not to startle the woman. Things were a little tenser than he had thought they were going to be, and that was saying something. He turned the thing on but did not hit record yet. By that point, even Chloe had noticed it. The brunette opposite of him relaxed. Nic swept the room, as much to commit parts of it to memory for later narration as to look unassuming. An old polaroid camera sat on the dresser, alongside a photo which Nic could not get a good look at from just inside the door. Not far from the door were a pair of large, old boots that looked like they were military surplus more than anything else. Judging by Chloe's socked feet, they were hers. Max, on the other hand, wore shoes looked like they were made for hiking but dressed otherwise for leisure. Clearly the women intended to stick to the plan and not make their trip to Arcadia Bay that evening, which he was fine with. It would be getting dark soon.

 

“Grab a drink and kick back,” Chloe bade them. The brunette beside her nodded as if in agreement, discarded the old grey sweatshirt she was wearing and then settled into the seat farthest from the door. It might have been his imagination but the seating choice seemed intentional, especially when Chloe chose one as near to the same as she could. Nic saw no caution on Geoff's face, instead the man glanced down at the cooler sitting between Max's seat and an empty one and he burst into a large and strangely genuine smile of appreciation. Nic decided to take the seat nearest to the photography student.  _ I guess you're not really a student if you're not in school anymore, _ he mused. Max leaned down and began to free four beers, one after another.  _ They're picking seats so that we have easy access to the door. Are they trying to put me at ease?  _ “I want us all to hang out a bit, first.” Nic had not come all this way to 'hang out' but it had been a pain in the ass to get to this point, so he decided to humor her a while.

 

He did not, however, hesitate in waving digital recorder around so that everyone involved saw it. Nic sat it down on the table in the between them all.

 

“You don't have to tell me twice,” Geoff replied to Chloe as Nic passed a beer from Max to him. No sooner had Chloe gotten her hands on her own then a brief series of successive tabs popped on some cheap domestic beer. Geoff didn't complain and neither did Nic. What Nic did do was to point to the recorder as Geoff took his first long drink of cold beer in silence. He let the man have his traditional first drink in peace and then spoke.

 

“Do you guys mind if I record the conversation?” Chloe rolled her eyes at him and he tried not to take it personally.

 

“Fine.” Nic reached across the table to press the large, red, record button but the woman to his right held up a hand to get his attention. Nic turned his head toward the brunette. Though her voice came through a little softly, he thought it would be perfectly audible on the recorder.

 

“We're not really interested in talking about much of the story tonight, so if that's what you're hoping for it might be a waste of your recorder's battery life and storage.”

 

“I can charge it just fine over night and I've got plenty of storage,” he promised the woman, who nodded and then pulled her hand back. Chloe remained slightly exasperated as she took a drink and to Nic's left Geoff looked uninterested. He did not seem to be taking a side either way. Nic pressed the button and then settled back into his seat, letting loose a sigh of relief. His back hurt from sitting in the truck's passenger seat and his feet were even sore, though he had not spent any real time on them that day. As usual in conversational matters, Geoff looked intent on letting Nic start off because when Nic shot him another glance, the man simply shrugged and took another sip from his beer with a look on his face as if he didn't have a care in the world. With Max's insistence that they weren't going to talk about Arcadia Bay and Chloe's earlier dismissiveness, Nic decided not to go onto any serious topics. “How was the trip down here?” Max was the one who opened her mouth to speak, but Nic spotted a question burning in Chloe's eyes already. This was the kind of thing  _ he  _ was good at recognizing.

 

“It was quicker than I thought it would,” Max told him. “For the most part. Not quick enough not to start thinking too much, but oh well.” Nic took another sip of his own drink and Max immediately mirrored the action, whether she meant to or not. He had to assume that, as conflicted about all of this as Nic had been, these two had had a far more stressful trip with the promise of seeing their demolished hometown hanging over their heads the entire time. In retrospect, the two women in front of him were in incredibly good moods with that considered, especially Chloe. She did not even look close to being expressly rude, much less threatening him. “What about you?”

 

“I wasn't allowed to drive, so it was fine,” he joked. If they were 'just hanging out' then a little bit of levity was wont to go a long way. The question did not disappear from Chloe's eyes as she gazed across the table directly at him, however her lips had quirked upward as if she were amused by this. Beside him, Geoff sat his half empty can down on the table a little more loudly than necessary.

 

“Why, I'm feeling wide awake, thank you very much,” the man declared, in a forced affronted voice. This, at least, made Nic smile, however nervously. “Long time behind the wheel can be therapeutic. Helps me think.” Max grew quiet, but when Nic looked toward the woman to get a read on her, she was glancing between Nic and Chloe without any pretense.  _ I think we have something to talk about?  _ Nic thought, curiously. He felt a little less jarred than he expected to as a result of their meeting, so Nic turned raised eyebrows on Chloe.

 

“What is it?” he asked her. The brunette to his right took a very,  _ very  _ long drink from her can. The table did have a sort of tension to it and Nic thought that at least Chloe was able to see right through Geoff's laid back posture to know that he was part of that tension. Whether she was or not, Nic knew Geoff at least was part of the  _ source  _ of that tension. He had made it clear he was bringing the man along 'for safety' which, upon reflection, sounded a lot like bringing Geoff along as 'muscle'.  _ I mean, I kind of did,  _ Nic mused. When Chloe Price finally opened her mouth and spoke, settling her can down in front of her, it was to surprise him with a very direct and certainly the most specific question about the Tanis Podcast she had ever lobbed his way.

  
  


“Whose journal is it your friend's been reading on the show and why haven't you told us yet?” For a moment, Nic paused, taken a little bit aback at being almost attacked by the question, then he snorted.  _ No bullshit, just go right for the big question.  _ The woman across from him certainly struck him as perceptive enough to know that there was a damn good reason why they hadn't been identifying the source of the journal entries which were coming, slowly, to a close as the first season ticked down. He was actually on slightly familiar ground in the moment, even if the bluenette had caught him off guard.  _ That's the word you use, right? Bluenette? _

 

“I take it you've listened to the podcast since the last time we talked?” he asked, quietly. In some ways he felt like Cameron Ellis, sitting across from a Nic Silver of his own. It actually felt a lot less empowering than he thought it would to know something that someone was genuinely interested in and have reservations about talking about it. That being said, the woman's eagerness looked like it might have knocked three or four years off her face and he got the impression of an excited young kid who might not know what they were getting into.  _ Is this what I look like to Ellis or am I just some kind of mark to him? _

 

“We both have,” Max told him in that same calm, quiet tone. “Chloe just gets... locked in on certain details sometimes.”

 

“Well,” Chloe exclaimed, turning toward her. “You have to admit. The narration – Nic, I mean, has told us everything so far.” She turned back to him, apparently no longer intent on talking about him as if he were not present. “It seems pretty suspicious not telling us who wrote  _ this. _ ” Nic nodded to say he understood and then reached out for the can in front of him. He pondered how best to say that he wasn't sure what or how much to tell her, that what he knew about the trip was a long conversation and not a distinctly pleasant one, how to say that he did not want to talk about the things his sleep therapist had managed to pull out of him through hypnotherapy. Finally, he settled on being a little petty.

 

“I'm not sure I'm interested in talking about too much of the story tonight. I'd rather us all just hang out for a bit.” Beside him, Geoff grinned over the brim of his beer. Even Max's smile looked genuine. For a moment, Chloe blinked at him uncomprehending, then frowned.

 

“Hey,” she called, as if moderately upset by the response. Chloe looked toward her girlfriend and apparently saw no help coming from the photographer who was suddenly very interested in her drink. “Fair enough,” the woman grumbled and then dropped the matter. Nic marked this down as the first time he could remember having any real power or authority in an interviewer-subject relationship. Most of the time when he did this, the people had very little interest in talking to him (or at least plenty of reservations about doing so) and even less interest in what he was doing. Withholding information would generally be, at the most, an annoyance for the people he interviewed.  _ Then again, I've told these two plenty so far. More than I'd usually tell a couple of strangers, for sure.  _ A marked silence stretched out, punctuated only by the sound of people taking drinks. Nic was beginning to get concerned that he had genuinely upset the balance at the table by taking a swipe at the woman across from him when finally Max Caulfield spoke.

 

“So, did you go to school up in Vancouver?” With this prompting, a fairly normal conversation unfolded. Geoff stayed mostly quiet throughout as Nic discussed things he had enjoyed in school with Max (they had apparently both been big readers and, like his cousin Terry, Max had played an instrument for some time), though occasionally he commended when some piece of information Nic exposed surprised or amused him. Chloe was the same way for the first ten minutes or so. If Nic hadn't known better he would have guessed they were  _ both  _ sulking over something. After a few minutes of talking tabletop gaming with the women at the table, (Chloe had told him she had a friend he would have gotten along with) he decided to turn the conversation back to them. He had been talking about himself for several minutes by that point.

 

“What about you two, where did you go to school?” Almost as soon as the question was out of his mouth he placed his face in his hands and made as if to apologize. It was not only a stupid question, it was one that might have been upsetting. _I guess I got_ too _comfortable_ _for a second._ When he looked up, Max looked as if she was going to give him a free pass, hell, she even looked like the faux pas had been funny to her. Chloe on the other hand raised her hands and gestured as if to ask, 'where do you think?'

 

“We went to elementary school in a nearby town called Edgeton, then middle school and beyond.” Though the woman had answered him it was very quick and to the point. He understood they were coming to an important subject and kept his mouth shut. Whether or not he learned anything of use or importance, he would at least have a recording of the conversation.  _ And at least MK isn't here to give me shit for screwing up like that.  _ “Blackwell Academy changed from a regular private high school to one that offered two-year senior program in 2011.”

 

“Basically,” Chloe said, taking over when Max did not seem to know how to continue, “if you weren't going to be a senior by 2012, you were outta there.” She gestured over her shoulder in an imitation of an umpire ejecting someone from a baseball game. “Got a buddy of mine really upset when he realized he'd have to leave at the end of the year. He basically just withdrew from school a couple of months later. No reason to stick around, he said. Plus, his family had to move. Things weren't great financially in Arcadia Bay.” Out of the corner of his eye, Nic caught the brunette beside him rubbing at her face in a familiar way. She looked tired.  _ Most of us look tired.  _ This was even true of Geoff, but the man didn't seem to show it in his face or under his eyes. Another long silence ruled, after which the man in question actually directed conversation for once.

 

“I guess that means it's time for us to talk business?” Geoff asked. When Chloe nodded, Nic leaned forward and squinted at his recorder. As far as he could tell he had plenty of battery life left and other than the conversation with Geoff outside of the burger joint earlier, Nic was fairly certain the card was free of any data. “But first,” the other man declared before anyone could speak. “I think we need a fresh round.” Nic and Max were closest to the cooler so, together they worked to secure a beer for everyone. As he was coming up from the old red cooler with his own beer and Max with hers, he realized that the woman to his right was definitely not old enough to legally drink in America. He  _ had  _ seen a file on her fairly recently, after all. Nic stayed silent on this point as four tabs popped in unison.

 

“Are you sure about this?” Max asked Nic, surprising him a bit in taking the lead. “I really don't see how it can relate to Tanis.”

 

“I agree,” Chloe piped up. “It's all – it's all weird shit but different brands of weird shit and, no offense, but frankly Tanis feels like the cheap Walmart version of Weird Shit in comparison.” Nic wasn't offended. Hell, he wasn't even irritated. He laughed genuinely.  _ MK never bothers to say 'no offense'. She doesn't give a shit.  _ “What's so funny?”

 

“I'll explain some day, probably,” he responded. They were onto business. He was not going to be the one to derail that. “Honestly, now that I'm here, if I end up doing an episode on Arcadia Bay and it's not Tanis related that's just fine by me.” The two women shared a look between them that Nic could place as aggravation. Somehow, Nic thought, despite the fact that they had let it go this far, they were still conflicted about the trip, about telling Nic their stories and about seeing Arcadia Bay again. On that last point he couldn't blame them, but if they had had such major doubts, why had they come all the way here? Again, Geoff redirected the conversation.

 

“So how are we doing this?” That was a vague enough question that it probably left things open to many different answers. Knowing Geoff, that was almost certainly the point of it. The women at the table with them didn't miss a beat, though.

 

“I tested our rental car's inbuilt GPS. Addresses in Arcadia Bay are still working fine, so I can provide addresses if you've got a smartphone or GPS.” Nic hummed at Chloe's revelation. Maybe there was no real reason for anyone to pull Arcadia Bay out of the GPS system's database but it was somewhat surprising that the addresses would still work for buildings that no longer stood and a town that no longer existed. “Or you could just follow us into town tomorrow morning.”

 

“Around what time?” Geoff asked. Nic fell quiet. He was fine with letting the others handle this. To his right, the brunette perked up and in a voice cheery and loud enough that her partner rolled her eyes, she answered.

 

“Bright and early,” the woman declared. As Chloe rolled her eyes, Max smirked at her. For a moment the two of them paused like that, as if each was waiting for the other to break or say something. Then, Max's face grew serious and that same quiet tone took over. “Chloe has promised to start us off, so we're going to be meeting up somewhere just outside of the city for that. It'll probably be about a 20-25 minute drive if the back road she knows is still open.” At this point Nic spoke up. 

 

“And if it’s not?” 

 

“Well,” Chloe muttered as she settled her drink down in front of her and spun the can between her hands. “Either we open it ourselves or we try one of about two others, or we walk. Who's up for hiking through depressing urban decay?” The woman's momentarily cloying, cheery tone faded. It was clear that that idea did not appeal to her much, but thinking back to the footwear the women had brought along with them, Nic realized that they had prepared for such a venture. His shoes were sturdy enough for a hike, but he thought that if they ended up doing so, he was going to need to take care not to step wrong and get cut on anything. Nic was not looking forward to the tetanus shot that was sure to follow.  _ Why are you back in town, son? Well, mom and dad, I cut myself on an old piece of rusty rebar down in the States. Yeah, that'll go over well.  _ Nic had not spoken to his parents in almost a week. Beside him, Geoff raised his can, tilted it toward Chloe just slightly and then took a long drink. Nic wasn't sure what that meant but marked it down as most likely being a form of toast.

 

“Could I ask where we'll be going tomorrow?” Nic probed. He looked between the two women but Max had taken to looking down her drink and not at anyone around them. Nic couldn't read any particular emotion on her face, so he shifted his gaze over to her partner.

 

“That depends on how long we take at the first place,” the punked out woman answered, rather unhelpfully. “I'm not going to rush through this or anything, but I could get there and decide I'd rather swallow burning hot lead for three hours instead of stay there.” Nic set aside the potent mental imagery – not to mention the phantom twinge of pain – and tried to guess at where they might be going to upset the woman so much.  _ Maybe her old house? That might make me upset, too. _

 

“There?” Nic prompted. For a moment, the woman across from him matched eyes with him. Her blue eyes were a little bit paler than her partners and in that moment spoke of a frustration forming in the woman's mind.

 

“'There' is what's left of American Rust Junkyard,” Chloe told him, shortly before going quiet. Nic blinked. The name was familiar. The only thing he could guess was that somewhere in the file sitting in his bag one room over the junkyard had been noted for one reason or another. He wasn't sure  _ why  _ that might have been off of the top of his head, but he filed the idea away for review before bed.  _ Assuming I don't screw up and get drunk.  _ The good news was that they weren't exactly drinking something strong enough to sneak up on a person. Well, at least not a person his size. He turned his head to find that the photographer to his left had lifted her own at some point and was now watching his face.

 

“After that,” the brunette told him, her voice firming and rising in volume, “if there's time, I'd like us to go to Blackwell.” Nic didn't need his notes to remember the name of the private school with its experimental two year senior program and its tendency to give students legs up on admission to some of the best schools in the country. There were still people, usually very wealthy people with some connection to the place admittedly, who said that its destruction had been a small blow to education in the country. Nic thought that mostly meant for education for the wealthiest people in the country. Each year the school had taken in about five students on a sort of financial aid program. The woman directly across from him had been one of them but, as far as Nic knew, the majority of the students had been from fairly affluent families or, at the worst, upper-middle class ones like the Caulfields themselves. “That's where my the start of my story takes place, for the most part, if not the most important parts.”

 

Despite the information that had been leaked by the mental health clinic in Seattle suggesting that the women in front of him used to spend every weekend out wandering the woods in the area, Nic noted that neither of them were thinking about taking him out there, even having listened to the Tanis Podcast.  _ I'll ask them about the leak and where they used to go after they've told me what they're going to tell me.  _ He thought it would be stupid to get in their way at the moment: they were offering him the 'whole story.' That was more than most people would offer him.  _ Hell, it's more than Geoff or MK will give me, assuming I actually get the 'whole story', whatever that is. _

 

“I understand,” Nic told them. Their itinerary for the next day did strike him as holding all the potential in the world for a hike through 'urban decay' but Nic had been in worse places than Arcadia Bay. At least, he thought he had.  _ It would probably help if you could remember them,  _ Nic thought as he ran a hand through his hair absentmindedly. “I'll be ready,” he promised the table at large and was just about to turn to Geoff to make sure everything sounded agreeable to him when his phone began to vibrate in his pocket.

 

_ I better see what's going on. _ For a moment his eyes shot to the recorder on the table and then he told himself not to be so paranoid. If he needed to step out, nothing was going to happen to it. His left hand rose, a finger up as he fished his phone out with his right. The letters 'MK' lay over a photo of a meerkat on the call preview screen, something which he secretly hoped MK never found out he used to signify her.  _ Speak of the devil and she will appear.  _ “Gotta take this!” Nic did not watch to see anyone's reaction. He simply dragged himself from his seat and out of the fairly comfortable motel room into a freezing cold evening. It was not quite cold enough that his face stung upon stepping out but he thought if he were standing in the wind it would have been enough to do so.  _ Must be under ten degrees out here.  _ He finally answered the call.

 

“Hello?” he greeted as the call came through.

 

“What's going on?” MK asked, immediately. Her voice didn't sound especially stressed so she was not upset about anything. It was just an MK kind of greeting. Part of him still wished he had asked her to join him on this trip. He knew the brunette in question was busy, but he would have happily paid for a separate room for her, covered food and drink if it meant he would have her honest read on the women he was about to go into a disaster zone with.

 

“Not much, we're just talking specifics about where we're going and when, now. Geoff seems like he's calmed down, so I'm taking that as a good sign.” There was a humming in the back of MK's throat. It was not an impatient one or even a comfortable one, it was the familiar sound of a habit she had passed off to him. MK was musing something, but did not want to voice it out loud. “MK? Everything alright?”

 

“Yeah,” the hacker muttered. He didn't think he was imagining some degree of irritation in her tone. “I just wanted to make sure your trip went okay.”

 

“It was fine,” Nic told her, unable to keep his confusion out of his voice as he backed up against the stretch of brick beside the door he had just come walking out of. An incredibly old station wagon pulled into the parking lot in the waning light, travelers, Nic thought, on the verge of exhaustion. You had to be to stop and stay somewhere like the place he was staying in. Either that, or on a clandestine trip of dubious legality to an abandoned city. “Geoff wouldn't let me drive or anything so I-”

 

“Good,” MK replied, voice now all hurry and business. Nic shut his mouth. “Well, I gotta jet.” Nic blinked. Was she irritated at something or simply still busy from the work she had on her plate? It had been an awfully quick call, which could also simply mean that she was genuinely just checking up on him.  _ Maybe it's a bad sign when the people you employ start checking up on you. Then again, if she was just an employee she probably wouldn't want to check up on me. _ Before the old, tired refrain could kick in again, Nic cleared his throat. He had a thought on how to answer a question nagging at him that he did not want to pose to the two women waiting in the motel room and gauge whether MK was in a particularly poor mood or not.

 

“Wait,” he called.

 

“ _ What?” _

 

“ _ I'm drawing a blank. Does the name American Rust mean anything to you in regards to Arcadia Bay?” _

 

“ _ Uh, let me check.” I heard nothing. Not the rifling of paper or the clicking of a mouse. MK either had the microphone she used to make calls perfectly balanced or she had some way of accessing data hands and sound free. Whichever it was, for different reasons, I was jealous. “That's the place where an anonymous tip turned up the body of that missing girl a few hours before the town went to shit and they lost her body again. Why?” _

 

“ _ That's where they're taking us tomorrow morning.” _

 

“ _ Okay, that's kinda creepy.” _

 

“ _ Maybe, but maybe they're the ones who called in an anonymous tip.” _

 

“ _ No, the notes said it was a man with a deep voice.” _

 

“No, the notes said it was a man with a deep voice,” Nic chuckled.

 

“Voice changers  _ are  _ a thing, you know.”

 

“Of course they're a thing,” MK shot back dismissively. Somehow, she had read the cues in his voice, the ones which suggested he was going to ask her for a copy of this phone call for the sake of the podcast. They were now conversing with one another in their Tanis voices. “But no one with half a brain gets fooled by them unless they're really,  _ really  _ advanced.” MK was in better position to know than he was. He knew more about editing audio, certainly but he had never taken the time to mess with a voice changer, at least not since he was a kid.

 

“You're probably right, but that's where we're going.”

 

“Stick close to Geoff, I guess.”

 

“'You guess?'” Nic prodded.

 

“Well, I still don't know about him, but the devil you know, right?” she shot back, quickly, as if looking for an out from the conversation. If she was particularly pissed at him instead of in her usual hurry, Nic couldn't catch any sign of it.

 

“Right,” he agreed. Privately, he thought that MK might not be capable of trusting anyone too far, even Nic himself. She had to keep those walls up around herself for a reason.

 

“That all you need?”

 

“Yeah,” Nic admitted, though he half hated for her to go. “I'll see you-” he cut off as a click sounded to signify that the call was over. Certainly, it wasn't as if there was a phrase or a word one might say to do the same thing more politely.

 

The discussion the room must have been cut off by him knocking, but the drinking had not been because when Nic was let into the room by Max Caulfield, Geoff and Chloe greeted him not by immediately speaking but simply throwing a pair of empty cans past him toward the nearest trash can. He was fairly certain by the sound that one or both of them had missed, but neither moved from the table as Geoff raised a hand and Max shook her head, looking almost apologetically up at him. Nic shrugged and shut the door behind him as quickly as he could. It was way too damned cold for standing in the doorway and letting the hot air out.

 

“Was that MK?” Chloe greeted him, her voice lilted slightly and knowingly. Nic blinked in momentary surprise and was rewarded by the punk laughing and leaning back in her seat.

 

“Sorry about her, Chloe has a bit of a crush on MK,” Max shot back, crossing her arms and settling into her own chair. Slowly, Nic did the same, though he did not take his eyes off of the woman across the table as she leaned toward Max, looking affronted. Whatever the woman was whispering in her partner's ear, Nic decided he was better off not knowing since in response the brunette turned red in the face and proceeded to spend an excessive amount of time raising her beer to her lips and taking a sip.

 

“Why am I not surprised you're a fan?” Nic deadpanned.

 

“I dunno, maybe because she's a badass like me?” For a moment, Chloe looked at her partner as if for backup, but the photographer did not make eye contact with her. Nic had the feeling that there was no genuine strife at work here, but that things were loosening up finally and the girls were joking around. When Nic lifted his beer so that he did not try to form a response to that statement, he found it warmer than he thought it would be and nearly empty. In that moment he thought he could use one or two more. He finished the can in silence as Geoff muttered something to the punk which Nic missed. As he leaned down toward the cooler, the woman across from Nic perked up.

 

“Hey, Geoff, wanna help me make a run for a little more ice, killer? I think we're gonna need it.” Nic glanced up as he came up with his own drink. It was true that the cooler's ice had all but melted so it was easy to dismiss the request as innocent. On the other hand, she had been so specific in wanting  _ Geoff  _ in particular to come with her, in trusting this specific person she didn't know that Nic immediately suspected an agenda.  _ You're letting that whole LSD tea thing get to you. _

 

“I'm guessing this place doesn't have free ice machines just down the 'hall'?” Geoff asked, making air quotes at the last word. As Nic popped the top on his third drink of the night, he thought he saw something in Geoff's eyes. It looked like someone who had been challenged and pitied the person dumb enough to challenge them. Chloe gave the line a half-hearted laugh.

 

“No, but there's a convenience store just around the corner. You and I could walk over there in no time if you're as tired of sitting as I am.” Nic didn't think that Geoff was going to agree to go walking alone with a stranger around the seedier part of a town the man did not know, but he was surprised when the ex-soldier nodded.

 

“Actually, that's kind of a good point.” For a moment that seemed like all that needed to be said to settle the issue and then, his hand halfway down to pushing him up from the table, Geoff paused and turned his head slowly to look at Nic and, Nic saw, Max as well. He did not look concerned as much as he did calculating. Judging by the way Max first furrowed her brow and then looked away, she saw it too. Chloe, too, had been paying attention.

 

“Oh, come on,” the woman sighed. “Okay, Nic,” at this, Chloe turned away from Geoff and stood up. “You've probably got a hundred pounds on my girlfriend. If she tries anything, you have my permission to throw her across the room like a ragdoll.” Nic felt his lips curl up despite himself but it did not do anything to help him fight off the creeping nerves. Hadn't everything seemed a lot more laid back just a moment before?

 

“Hey!” Max looked slightly offended, judging by the fact that her arms remained crossed across her chest.  _ Or she's cold. _ Nic had just come in from outside and let a fair bit of the warmth out of the room. Pairing that with the woman having discarded her sweater earlier and the fact that Nic's comfort came in part from the jacket still across his shoulders and that seemed as likely as not.

 

“Max, let's be real, if  _ he  _ tried anything, we both know you wouldn't be swinging a fist.” Chloe looked momentarily frustrated again. Nic thought she did 'pissed off punk chick' a little too well, as if it were either well rehearsed or far too familiar to her for another reason. “I just want Sergeant Sir here to get the picture that he doesn't need to play bodyguard right now. We're all cool here.” At this, Geoff spoke. His serious voice did not match the laid back look on his features.

 

“I'm not a Sergeant and I'd appreciate it if we could avoid nicknames, m'kay?” Here the women held her hands up defensively.

 

“Okay,” Chloe promised and then added, “If it's going to convince you, I'll be honest with you. I'm the one of us with a weapon and I'm fine going and leaving Max here with your buddy.” For a moment, Nic blinked at her, looked toward the slightly pale brunette to his right and then the smirking brunet to his left.

 

“You think you're the  _ one  _ of us with a weapon?” Geoff queried, not entirely keeping laughter from his voice.

 

“When did we start talking weapons and who should be scared of who, here?” Nic interjected. Absolute silence met him at first. Max looked away from him and when he turned to the other two, Chloe and Geoff wore matching looks of incredulity. In a pitying tone, the blue haired woman across from him leaned slightly toward him from her position standing on the other side of the table and quietly spoke.

 

“Oh, oh buddy... from the very beginning.” Comically, Geoff agreed verbally. Nic shook his head and brought one hand up to cover part of it. He had thought that this had all been going better than expected but now Chloe and Geoff were having a weapon measuring contest. When Geoff shrugged and stood a moment later, Chloe pumped a fist and leapt sideways onto the bed to her left, rolled off of it in a fairly dexterous maneuver and dragged her boots from beside the dresser over to the very edge of it where she perched just feet behind Max's back. The photographer was no longer facepalming, but she looked less than pleased by this turn of events.

 

“After you?” Geoff prompted as Chloe pulled on her first boot.

 

“Fine by me, I just know we don't have enough ice if we wanna keep this party going, plus I wouldn't mind some for overnight so that we can bring it into town with us. I'm gonna need a beer or twelve by lunchtime tomorrow.”  _ That's going to make for an interesting day,  _ Nic told himself,  _ if she's serious.  _ Whatever it was that Chloe was 'starting off' for them the next day was being pushed as at the very least traumatic enough that the woman was still conflicted about telling him. As she leaned down to put on her left boot, Geoff leaned down, too, to whisper into Nic's ear.

 

“Back of the waistband.” Nic processed the comment just long enough that he almost missed what Geoff was trying to point out. As Chloe leaned forward and pulled her remaining boot on, Nic could see a bump through the back of her shirt and the jacket she wore overtop it, right about where he suspected the waistband would be. It was the right size to be a gun the woman was concealing behind her.  _ She had her hand behind her back when we came in,  _ Nic realized.  _ Geoff's known this whole time.  _ In that moment, Nic realized that he had never had a real grasp on how tenuous things between the four of them were, or how dangerous the situation was. _ They were nervous about going with me to begin with, or telling me anything. Bringing Geoff escalated things and now they have to think about protecting themselves. _ Nic thought that was the most flattering light he could view the two women bringing a gun along in, yet as the door shut behind Chloe and Geoff and Nic found himself alone in the room with the photographer to his right who was rapidly draining another beer, he felt more on edge than he had the entire day.

 

“I'm sorry,” the woman said, quietly. Nic couldn't help it. Reflexively he rose to his feet, readying to leave the room.

 

“About what?” he asked, her, firmly as she lifted her head to him, eyes widening slightly.  _ I'm freaking her out as much as she is me. This is stupid.  _ Nic slightly regretted asking Geoff along, now. He had completely misread the situation and now he had made the two of them nervous about him.

 

“Chloe,” Max told him, voice rising a bit in what Nic realized was supposed to be a comforting tone. He sighed and settled back into his seat, trying to find the words to apologize for the mix up. They probably had a couple of minutes to talk before the others returned. “I know it sounded bad, but that was actually her way of showing trust. She has trouble doing that. She's been through some shit.”  _ Note to self, never get MK and Chloe Price in a room together. Bad idea. _

 

“She's very protective of you,” Nic mused.

 

“I'm protective of her, too,” Max countered, her voice as firm as he had ever heard it, and her eyes almost looking to darken. “Which is why I don't care if she's two sentences into her story tomorrow or she's almost done: when she says she's finished, she's finished and I won't be fighting about it.” He wasn't sure if the smile that came to his face was about the tone of Max's voice or his own nerves but he suppressed it as best he could so she did not think he was not taking her seriously. Not taking this woman in front of him seriously despite her unassuming appearance might be the worst decision a person could make.

 

“That's fair,” he told her. He was in a shitty motel room with a stranger and for the first time it was Max Caulfield who struck him as the more imposing of the two women. He inhaled, exhaled and then decided it was smart to make his apology for upsetting the entire tone of their tenuous relationship by bringing Geoff along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to post here that anyone who wants to is welcome to follow me on twitter, where I am LiSTheOV. I'll be posting there as stories update and talking about writing, general geekery, bad jokes, also probably lots of issues relating to the LGBT community, that kind of thing.


	6. The Dreamer

Disclaimer: I own the rights to more or less nothing seen here, nothing from Life is Strange or the Public Radio Alliance or Pacific Northwest Stories. This is entirely a fanbased work for personal enjoyment. 

* * *

 

# Chapter Six: The Dreamer

 

Max looked back over her shoulder toward the black SUV following along behind the little Ford Fiesta. If she squinted she could see the faces of the men through the windshield, as close as they were following Chloe and Max down the old road which had turned from gravel to dirt some time ago. Arcadia Bay and the American Rust Junkyard were just up ahead, theoretically, but Geoff clung tight to their tail as if the woman to Max's left was going to suddenly slam the gas down and leave them behind. Max turned back to face forward and took a second to adjust the jacket she had packed for the trip around her. It was not exactly freezing out, but it wasn't comfortable, either and theoretically they were going to be standing outside for a fair amount of the day. The only question was how long the four of them were going to spend in the junkyard, or whatever remained of it. Beside her, Chloe was dressed in fairly nice, sturdy jeans, her boots and a thick jacket of her own. They had agreed to be prepared to get out and walk when the time came, because according to Nic, satellite imagery of the town suggested this area was still a total wreck. Max had not asked how he had gotten his hands on detailed satellite images. Given his partner on the Tanis Podcast, it seemed like wasted breath.

  
“Okay,” Max started after maybe their tenth minute of quiet. “How do you want to do this?” She kept her voice low, so as not to sound as if she were trying to push the woman. If Chloe was in her head, Max had long since learned that unless there were signs of serious emotional distress it might be better to let her have her alone time. That didn't strike Max as too simple when in a car with her, but even still she would have to try. The question was Max's way of asking precisely what Chloe was going to tell Nic and, she guessed, Geoff too. They had already talked about this twice but Max had received a different answer both times. It seemed to her that Chloe hadn't been too sure about this as of the night before. Beside her, the punk's left hand reached up to pull fruitlessly down at her beanie. It could not go down any further but Max suspected the comfort was in the act. Chloe frowned.

 

“I'll tell them everything, mostly,” she said, sounding deadly serious. Relieved, Max did not detect any sign that Chloe was in an especially fragile mental state. She was simply talking about something very serious and not at all for joking about, to her. “I'm just going to need some uh, time, patience and understanding.”

  
“You always have my understanding and patience,” Max promised the woman in the same low voice, reaching out to squeeze Chloe's left shoulder and then turned her attention back toward the road as she waited for her girlfriend to take the bait. Any other day, Max might have been smiling out of the windshield.

 

“Not your time?” Chloe shot back, still sounding far too serious. Max did smirk.

  
“I've got all the time in the world and it's all yours. You don't even need to ask.” For a moment, Chloe's face softened.  


“God damn you're cheesy, Caulfield.”

  
“Only for you, Price.” Chloe had visibly relaxed slightly, no longer sitting stiff as a board in her seat with her eyes focused too intensely on one part of her range of vision. That being said, as Max turned away from the woman who did not look interested in continuing the discussion, she knew that Chloe was not okay. The familiar sights of the countryside around Arcadia Bay could have been comforting, but they were not. If Max was not okay, and she was not as she looked around and realized how close they truly were to the town they had grown up in, then despite the small smile on Chloe's face, she was not okay. She was not going to be okay at the end of the day. _What all we do today probably depends on how okay or not she is._ Max had made sure that while Chloe and Geoff were off getting more ice for their cooler the night before, that Nic understood this too. _If this fucks with Chloe, we're going back to the motel and I'll finish the rest tomorrow alone._  


After a couple more minutes of silence, Max reached across the arm rest between them and pressed her hand back down onto Chloe's shoulder.  


“Is there anything I can do for you?”  


“No,” Chloe replied, her eyes fixed firmly on the road which was starting to get hard to make out through the overgrowth. “There's nothing anyone can do unless they can-” the woman stopped talking, made a noise in her throat that was a mix between a laugh and choking and then exhaled. “Nope, not even then.” Max noticed the tightening of Chloe's hands on the wheel and found herself just hoping that Chloe still felt safe speaking her mind. Max wasn't going to pressure her –at least, not yet—but they had had a close call the day before over that damned CD and Chloe thinking that somehow talking to her dead ex would upset Max. _Yeah, no, fuck that._   


“Chloe, I want you to listen to what I'm about to say, really listen okay?” Max felt the car slow as Chloe nodded, not moving her eyes from the road, even so. She took a second to pick her words carefully and then said, “we are absolutely not going to shut the door on the whole 'being honest and open' thing, alright? Nothing changed yesterday. I love you. I won't let you think anything less.” Max swallowed, surprised to find a small lump in her throat. For a moment, Chloe's lips quirked and then she gave Max another nod.

  
“I understand, Max. Thank you for being so worried.” Max rested her left hand on the woman's knee and stayed silent as Chloe's eyes shot up to check the rear view mirror, as if making sure that the truck was still behind them. It must have been closer than she was comfortable with because Chloe sped back up immediately. This is borderline tail-gating now, Max thought as she glanced back again and found that she could see the look of anticipation on Nic's face in the passenger seat with alarming clarity. She was fairly certain that that should not be the case. Up ahead Max spotted the first sign of American Rust Junkyard, which was still at best ten minutes away. Technically it was a literal sign, one for Arcadia Bay itself which had almost definitely been ripped from the highway and deposited there. The sign was old, familiar looking and definitely in the wrong place. Even if someone had put a sign up for Arcadia Bay on this little back road in the past, it almost definitely would not have been sticking half out of the ground in the middle of a patch of tall weeds and she was fairly certain it would not have been curled almost enough to be bent in half. Chloe whistled in some surprise at the damage.

  
Not even a quarter of a mile later, the next decent sized piece of trash came into view. Max was fairly sure that it had been the nose of an old boat at one point but now it laid tilted on its side surprisingly close to the road. She wasn't sure whether it had been pulled from the junkyard and deposited there or if this had been an active, structurally sound fishing boat until October of 2013. One thing was for certain, Max thought. It was never going to be whole again, never going to carry men and women out onto the ocean looking to bring in fish, receive their paycheck and feed their families day in and day out, acts of labor and love by and for people who were dead, now. That was Max's doing. She swallowed against that lump in her throat again and looked pointedly away from the filthy, pale remains of a boat.

  
In silence, they rode for seven or eight more minutes as the spread of debris got more and more thick by the second. Several times Chloe slowed, made a noise as if unsure about what she was doing and had gone around or over a piece of garbage on what was left of the old dirt road. Apparently, though, the field was far too littered with debris for her to justify going any farther. Chloe slowed to a stop. It did not take the truck close on their tail long to do the same as Chloe turned to look at Max. She could see uneasiness chasing resignation around Chloe's mind. Finally, without saying anything, Chloe put the vehicle in park and finally shut it off. The woman seemed to sigh and crumple forward in her seat for a moment, as if in defeat and then she slid the keys into her front left pocket. Max unbuckled her seatbelt.

  
“I don't think taking this thing any farther is going to be smart,” Chloe said. Looking out of the windshield, Max could understand why. Most of the trash around them looked harmless and only some of it was on the road, but some of it was also metal, jagged, rust, bent and ultimately dangerous. If the debris was only going to thicken as they got closer to the junkyard, she was with Chloe. Their tires were going to be at risk at this rate and it took a special kind of stupid to risk stranding yourself in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire. As for getting hurt herself, the hospital in Edgeton seemed pretty far away in that moment. If anyone else got hurt, well, Max wasn't against using her powers to preserve peoples' health and safety. By the time that Chloe began to open her door, Geoff was already out of the truck and approaching them. Nic's door opened shortly after Chloe's and the man climbed out, voice recorder in hand. Probably already on. Max opened her door.

  
“What do you think?” Geoff greeted them as Max climbed out of the car. She heard the doors lock behind her. She wasn't sure that there was likely to be anyone out there to steal anything.

  
“I think we're on foot from here on out,” Chloe called, loudly enough for Nic to hear as the four gathered around the back of the Fiesta.

  
“Yeah, I was afraid it was getting to that point,” Geoff said, before cracking first his knuckles and then his neck. The man wore his grey 'ARMY' tee, which Max thought to be a little on the nose, and a pair of heavy looking blue jeans. Pair that with his shoes and he looked dressed for a hike. Even Nic had done his best to prepare for the same. The taller of the two men itched at his chin as Chloe shrugged and then mimicked her gesture. “Hell, it's just like old times.”

  
“Old times?” Max asked as Nic finally reached them. The jacket he was wearing that day was longer and looked like it might be a pain in the ass to move in, not to mention looked a little light for the time of year, but Max had to admit that the weather was not that different from the last time she had seen Arcadia Bay, save for significantly lower humidity. If she didn't know better, she would say they were in for a good day. Max did know better though. Even the nature encroaching on the road and all the junk which she could now see spreading out ahead of them for quite a ways could not calm her mind. They were, more or less, finally back in Arcadia Bay. The ordeal had begun and she knew that the first blow was waiting just up ahead. Across from her, Nic looked surprisingly out of sorts, as if already tired on his feet. He drank less than Chloe last night, Max thought as the man pressed record on his voice recorder and blinked down at the ground as if he was having issues seeing it. She filed this strange behavior away when he cleared his throat and looked up, face all business. Max still saw disorientation in his eyes.

  
“This isn't the first town in, let's say, this shape that I've had to go hiking through. Hell, we're not even in the city itself yet. Fuck knows how that'll be.”

  
“Fuck knows,” Chloe agreed shortly and then turned away from the men. If she recognized Nic's momentary wavering of concentration or the way Geoff looked at the man periodically as if worried about whether or not Nic was going to be able to make their hike, she did not let on. Max wasn't going to go asking any probing questions at the moment, but if things continued to feel a little off there was only so far she was going to let things get. “If we were in a car, it'd be about a minute and a half down the road. Used to be you'd already be able to see the fence and the big old outer wall of junk but, you know.” Chloe gestured to the area around them as if to say that the wall of junk was now all over. Max thought the old dishwasher about thirty feet away from them made Chloe's point more effectively than she could have. Max turned her eyes on the woman as she stared at that dishwasher, grunted and then gestured down the road. “Come on.”

  
She wasn't sure exactly when the mood had changed between them. Certainly, things had improved and come to feel a little light after Chloe and Geoff had returned with the ice and the four of them had knocked back two or three more beers each. Her conversation with Nic in their absence had been enough to put Max at ease. Nic had explained quietly that Geoff hadn't really been brought along as any kind of power play, more out of genuine concern about going into an abandoned town with a pair of people he didn't know. He had appeared tense almost that entire conversation but when it was over Max had felt a lot more comfortable drinking around the man. As for what Chloe had talked about Geoff with during their trip around the black, Max still did not know. By the time Nic had declared that he had had to call it for the night so as to be well enough for the next day, Chloe and Max had already been tired enough for bed themselves. Max had been just tipsy enough to be distracted when the men retreated from their room to rest. She had not even thought to ask Chloe before setting an eight AM alarm and rolling over to go to sleep, herself.

  
Now, two hours and a few minutes after that alarm had dragged Chloe from her sleep and forced her to join Max in the waking world, Max found herself lagging a step or two behind Chloe as the woman led them all along what remained of a dirt road. What struck her the most about their trek was not the litter presumably displaced from the junkyard, but the nature sticking through. Most of the dirt road was covered not by the remains of boats, cars, signs and old kitchen and laundry appliances but by the tall grass and weeds which had sprouted up without the benefit of even occasional vehicular travel down the road to keep them at bay. That grass was tall enough that Max was rather concerned about stepping on some form of snake in the grass. For the first minute or two, no one spoke. Nic and Geoff were only a few steps behind Max and whenever Max looked back to gauge how they were doing, she thought she spotted Nic concentrating hard to walk in her or Chloe's footsteps and she knew she saw Geoff paying him a tiny bit of extra attention while trying not to look like it. The man wasn't babying Nic Silver or anything, but he certainly seemed as aware as Max was that something about the brunet reporter's behavior was abnormal.

  
“So, can your recorder pick me up from there?” At first Max was confused about the words coming out of Chloe's mouth, and then she realized what was about to happen. They might not have technically been in the junkyard yet, but Chloe was ready to get started. The girls' cooler, which sat in the back of Geoff's truck as per his offer, was going to be a bit lighter after this was over. Max was honestly wondering if Chloe was going to ask to ride in the back with them and the cooler to their next destination.

  
“Uh, yes,” Nic answered behind Max, but when she glanced behind her, he hurried to pass Geoff and draw even with Max. Not as an affront to him but for the sake of the woman rolling her shoulders beneath her jacket in front of Max as if they hurt, Max picked up the pace too so that she was just behind Chloe's left shoulder when things got kicked off properly. “It should be fine.” There was a small clang and when Max peeked back again, Nic was stumbling sideways, having just stepped down on what looked like it might have once been the bumper to a small vehicle and nearly fallen. The man shook his head and then returned to picking up the pace, his eyes locking on the back of Chloe's head in a way that reminded Max of a hungry dog following morsels of food between a human's plate and their mouth. She didn't want to find the look disturbing, she simply did.

  
“Good,” Chloe finally said. Max tried to analyze her tone. “Because I think I can start now. Don't worry, we won't be anywhere near done by the time we get to the place.”

  
“Where are we going again?” Geoff asked.

  
“Hit the sauce a little harder than you thought, huh?” Chloe jested and try as Max might she couldn't hear any legitimate good cheer in the woman's voice. This isn't going to be fun for her.

  
“Fair enough.” After a pause, “so, where are we going, again?”  


“American Rust Junkyard,” Nic said, before Chloe could.

  
“That explains a thing or five,” Geoff joked. She watched the older man kick a stone toward a small, crumpled hunk of metal that might have been a washing machine at one point. All further conversation, including Chloe getting started on her part of the story, stalled out as the stone rang off of the metal. It was only in the moments after the loud noise that Max realized she had been hearing birds and other animals until then. Mother nature had come roaring back into power in the kingdom of Arcadia Bay and she was a mistress both beautiful and fair. If one discounts the Storm.

  
“Are you ready?” Chloe asked Nic, still not turning back to look at any of them, not even at Max. Max stepped aside, to follow at the side of Chloe, no longer pushing aside the same knee-high (well, knee-high for Max) blades of grass that the woman had just moments before. She didn't want to block the sound of Chloe's voice in any manner if it was important to getting this story over and done with so that Chloe did not have to think about Rachel Amber any longer than needed or wanted. Max was going to put her through enough shit by making her relive the loss of her mother. “When I get going I want to get done with it.”

  
“I'm ready,” Nic declared, making Chloe jump as he hurried up to finally be in lockstep with her. Max snorted a little, despite the fact that nothing about the situation was really funny. She was just nervous. Now standing to Max's left, Geoff shot a look at her. Max privately thought that the two of them had better odds of not tripping over anything than Chloe or Nic did. While Max and Geoff had limited view of the road ahead of them, they at least had a good eye on Nic and Chloe, who were, neither of them, paying close enough attention. Max figured if she followed in the pair's footsteps she would be fairly safe not tripping over any of the debris which was now more common than clear ground. If either of them received any kind of notable injury, Max thought she could rewind far enough to prevent it.

  
  
“Well, I hate to start it off like my life's story, but it kind of is.” Max swallowed. When Chloe says she's going to tell them everything, she means everything. The woman's hands were already clenched into fists and the line of debris where Max thought that the junkyard's outer fence might have once stood was still around two or three hundred feet from them. Max wanted to be beside the woman, holding her hand, but she was fairly certain that with the way Chloe was squeezing them in the moment, Max would come away with two or three broken fingers. “I was born in Arcadia Bay. I’ve lived here my whole life. I got taken to Edgeton every damned day for elementary school, too. Arcadia Bay had a high school, a middle school and a pretentious, uptight, charcoal-into-diamond-ass-squeezing private school, but no elementary.” Max smiled at the woman's back. She hoped Nic was not looking for any family friendly commentary for his podcast. That PG rating (if such a system existed for podcasts) was going to fly right out of the window. Chloe was not a happy camper.  “I was actually a pretty normal, happy kid, even if I got made fun of a bit because I was really into science and stuff but that's okay. Wanna know why?” Max had an idea of why.

 

“I had my best friend with me from late preschool all the way through middle school. This short brunette named Max.” Nic turned his head slightly and looked back at her. At this, Max swallowed and averted her eyes, but let it continue. If this was going where she thought it was going, it was going to become pretty uncomfortable for her in a very short time. “We did everything together,” the woman laughed, “I mean fucking everything, man.” Chloe's hands unclenched and Max almost moved up to grasp them, except that in the next moment Chloe reached into her pocket and fished out her package of cigarettes. Max knew damn well that there were no tobacco products in there and judging by Geoff's smirk, he seemed to catch on pretty quickly as Chloe lit up. None of Max's reasons for hanging back had changed, so she stayed beside Geoff as Nic and Chloe walked ahead. Max watched her feet for the moment. “Got in trouble together, snuck out of our houses together, went out in the woods together, had our first alcohol together. We only lived a few blocks apart really, we could do whatever we wanted to – hey, are you okay?” Max lifted her head in time to see that Nic was now walking as if his muscles were stiff.

 

“Yeah, sorry,” Nic told her, but even as he spoke the man shook his head. Whatever Chloe had seen to make her worry about the man in the long black jacket beside her, Max and Geoff were not going to be treated to the sight. Slowly, Chloe turned back away to keep speaking but Max kept her eyes locked on Nic's back as the man lowered his head slightly. Beside her, Geoff was notably doing the same. When Chloe started to talk again and Max glanced at Geoff, he was frowning openly at Nic's back.

 

“Cool, anyway,” Chloe started, as if she suspected Nic was about to interrupt, “it was the whole shebang, hella best friends forever, had our first buzz together, buried treasure, sailed the seven seas, all that shit.” _God damn it, Chloe,_ Max wanted to sigh. No one wanted to hear a damn thing about their pirate phase, even if Max _had_ enjoyed Chloe's imagination in the bedroom the week before. _Alright, focus._ She didn't want to be thinking about Chloe telling her to 'shiver me timbers' while trying not to trip and fall over whatever rusty chunk of bumper or dryer lay in wait along the road. Max was no longer entirely sure how far away they were from the junkyard itself. They might have been in it for all the free space they now had to walk. It was now no longer about getting off of or out of the junk and to clean ground as much as it was about moving from piece of junk to piece of junk without falling. Max did have to focus on her footing more than she had expected. ”The trouble hit in high school. At the time Blackwell was just this high class private high school, and my parents decided that, you know what, we might be lower-middle class but if they busted their ass I could go and I was gonna go. I was actually excited, it was supposed to have a great science department. I thought it was gonna be no big deal: if my parents could send me there, no way in hell we couldn't convince Max's parents, who were _loaded_ in comparison to send her right?” That had, in fact, been something the two of them had tried shortly after the Prices floated the idea by Chloe.

 

“Turns out we were wrong, huh honey?” The most Chloe sounding thing Chloe had said for the last few minutes was that affectionate pet name. Max seized onto it as a sign that Chloe was doing her best to hold it together. With the way she was puffing away at the joint in her mouth, the shaking of the woman's hands would probably calm down. “Smoke?” Chloe asked, offering the spliff to Nic, who shook his head in silence. Chloe took one long stride forward, placed a booted foot on the shell of an old computer tower and turned back. Geoff and Max rejected the joint in turn. Max wouldn't have minded under normal circumstances but she was not about to get distracted and cut herself or something.

 

“Very wrong,” Max answered, to try to prompt the conversation forward. They were about to get to the first of the really ugly bad parts. “I didn't understand why at first. They didn't seem like they hated the place and we weren't having money troubles at the time or anything and our families still hung out, had those big joint backyard bar-b-qs.”

 

“Yeah,” Chloe agreed. “Good times.”

 

“It sounds like you guys have been close forever,” Nic observed.

 

“Pretty nearly,” Chloe told him. The tone in her voice said that she was going to finally get to the first real kick in the gut. “Except that it turns out that they didn't want to enroll Max at Blackwell because the Caulfields were moving away.” Chloe went silent save for the sound of her inhaling or her boots cracking an old milk carton which had not been able to support her weight. The height of the boots protected the woman from any wounds so Max tried her best to stay calm despite the turning of her stomach. “By the time I found out, I was already attending Blackwell and let me tell you, if you think kids are shit to begin with, give them a big head because their parents are loaded and then stick them in a room with a gangly girl in ratty clothing. Just wait. Blackwell was already hell when I was a freshman. Victoria wasn’t as bad back then, but she got worse as we got older and the girls who ended up not being total bitches, well it turns out they got it all out of the way when they were kids. I’d give off a bunch of names, but that’s not important and this isn’t about being mad that I was bullied.” Max still, years later, wished like hell she could have been there for Chloe during that time period. She wished she had at least been more talkative after moving away. She wished she could have come back a couple years early and kick a younger Victoria Chase's ass, no matter how much she might have liked her photos.

 

“I just want you guys to understand where I was when, a couple months later, my best friend, someone I was inseparable from, told me she was being moved hours away to Seattle.” Chloe again fell quiet, took a drag and held her breath as she reached out to something sticking up from the ground which Max might have mistaken for the stump of a very young tree, practically a sapling, if she had not paused to take a good look. A fence post, tilted at a 45 degree angle, barely supported Chloe's weight as she leaned against it. _We're here. I wonder when Chloe will tell them?_ “Just after that conversation, my mother shows up at our front door escorted by a couple of cops who tell us that my father was killed. It wasn't any kind of good death either. I didn't tell mom, but I listened in when the cops described it. The day of his funeral my best friend moved away and after a few weeks, it started to get harder for us to stay in contact. I spent the next couple of years feeling pretty abandoned, pretty angry and starting to get very depressed.”

 

Chloe had stopped moving, continuing to half lean against the remains of the fence which had once marked the boundaries of the junkyard where she had been killed in another timeline. Among all the bullshit covering the ground around them Max saw things she had observed the first time she visited the place, or at least their remnants. Among them was the sign off of the front of a school bus which she was willing to bet was still more or less in place. Chloe stayed quiet as she surveyed the area in front of them. Max did not know whether she was plotting a way over the small heap of garbage five or six feet away or trying to remain calm. Surprisingly, neither Nic nor Geoff made an attempt to prompt her to talk, to push her in any way. Geoff's eyes were no longer focused on Nic. Instead, he was staring pointedly at Chloe and Max had absolutely no idea what the look on his face meant.

 

“That hill of junk,” Chloe started, her tone now different, quiet and more introspective as she gestured to the remains of an upturned car and various other things, including a sign for a seafood restaurant long gone. “Most of that used to be a kind of wall of junk that used to stand right here like an extra barrier around the place. My dad's car was in there too, really close, the one he was driving when that eighteen wheeler crushed him and left him to bleed out on the side of the road like roadkill.” Max swallowed. She wasn't sure that Chloe had actually ever told her that last detail. _Fuck his audio quality,_ Max thought as she suddenly surged past Geoff. At the same moment Chloe took her first tentative steps toward the pile which Max was sure they were about to climb. Dubious looking, and almost shaky on his feet Nic took an unconfident stride after her and only slightly jumped when Max passed him. Whatever was going on with the man seemed a little more severe than a slight hangover but his state of mind was his business. Chloe's was Max's and she made that clear by pulling up beside Chloe, nudging her softly with her shoulder and then passing the woman. Max grabbed onto the side of the vehicle in front of her, testing her weight on it. When it held steady, she pulled herself up.

 

Max was not the most active person in the world, so even the simple act of hefting herself up by her arms was stressful on her body. If you wanted her to run somewhere, she was in decent shape for that. Anything else in the realm of exercise or exertion and she fell woefully short. As soon as Max had her feet beneath her she rose to full height and found that while the vehicle rocked a bit on its top, she was light enough that she could keep mostly stable. Behind her, Chloe's face did not reflect any kind of challenge accepted, she did not look as if her mood had improved at all. In fact, there was something reminiscent of abject horror on her face for a moment before she swallowed, took a drag and then started after Max. Max wished she understood it until a horrible thought struck her halfway through stepping from the vehicle to an large, busted spool of what must have once been some thick copper wire. She did not want to look down at the car she had just abandoned, in case her worst fears were confirmed.

 

“Wait, are you serious?” Nic asked incredulously as Chloe hurried after her, notably climbing around the vehicle in her path. _Oh, shit._

 

“Yeah, we're serious,” Chloe shot back. “Tetanus city, but don't worry, just listen to what Max says and you've got this.” At that, Max turned her attention back to the climb. There were only probably a good two feet between her and the top of this junk heap. The winch off of an old recovery boat looked like it might provide the answer she wanted. Max reached for it and readied to pull herself up, though with her feet on the suddenly unstable spool she was not so sure how well it would go. “Fucked me up when I found my dad's car. Try not to fall off of it.”

 

“What?” Nic asked behind her. Max didn't have to turn back to know that he had just hauled himself up onto the vehicle in question, much as she had done a moment before. Halfway through the process of pushing herself up onto the winch and using it to finally mount the summit of the hill, something gave way. She wasn't sure if the winch dislodged or something beneath it moved. Either way Max felt her feet give out from under her and she acted on instinct alone. She had always known the possibility existed of getting hurt, picking through a junkyard in disarray but she had also known there was a way around it. Max was mid tumble when she closed her eyes, reached out and pulled herself back a few seconds in time. The process was always the same: instinctual as much as intellectual, sensations and ideas but very little serious thought. She wanted back, so she went back. It was that simple. In this case, Max closed her eyes as she fell forward onto what was sure to be something sharp or rusty or both and opened them standing just in front of the winch.

 

“Wait, are you seri- what the _hell?”_ Max swallowed. She looked back behind herself. While Geoff was more focused on the climb in front of him, Nic had been looking at Chloe and Max as if they had just both grown an extra head, as if the idea of climbing this mountain of trash had not occurred to him as the most likely next step. Only, the thing was, now his eyes were locked in on Max and he looked a little bit as if he had seen a ghost. _Nic cussed, on recording. Someone's gonna have to edit that out,_ she thought. Unfortunately the jig was up. “How did you do that?”

 

“Do what?” Max asked him.

 

“I thought I just saw - nevermind.” Geoff had paused just between Chloe and Nic and was now looking between the three of them, one foot on top of the shell of yet another laundry machine and the other testing the edge of some sort of crate or toolbox.

 

“Everything okay?”

 

“Yeah.” Nic told the man, but he didn't sound clear. “I think maybe I just haven't had enough water today, or something.” Chloe was no fool. The knowing look she gave Max before the brunette turned her attention toward the junkyard was not subtle, not in the least. It was, however, a little relieved.

 

“I wouldn't try using that old salvage winch to get up,” Max called back to them as her eyes adjusted to the sight of the junkyard. Slowly, and almost morosely, Max pulled her camera from the bag which had been sitting around her shoulders the whole time. The last time Max had seen the junkyard, things had not been orderly or anything and one pile of junk had been as likely to spill over onto the one beside it as not, but it had not been like this. Where before there had been pathways, sometimes clear and broad, other times crowded and vague, now there was only trash as far as the eye could see. Even where Max thought that the terrifying train tracks which had almost taken Chloe's life from her a couple of times should be, all she could see was debris. The outer walls of cars and boats and such had been decimated. The only thing that was left of them was the occasional hill much like the one Max stood at the summit on, balancing carefully on what had once been a tackle box where it sat wedged against a busted bed frame made for a small child.

 

“Here's as good a place as any to cut into the place,” Chloe told them. “Be careful not to fall off that car,” she advised Nic. “It killed my father, but it doesn't have to get you too.”

 

“What?” Nic asked the woman. Max snapped her photo of the field of junk. She spotted an old white truck on its side not too far from where she was sure Chloe was about to lead them. Max took another couple of photos before Chloe was close enough to her that she thought it was smart to move on or risk causing a junkslide. What she had been hoping to find was the old sign for the American Rust Junkyard, which had hung over the entrance. It was kind of iconic and Max felt more disturbed by its absence than she thought possible considering she was trying hard not to think about the bodies of Rachel Amber or Nathan Prescott lying out in this place. There was almost no clear ground, so Max did not aim for any spot in particular, instead as she eased herself down she simply looked for the sturdiest object in her path, calling back the occasional hint for the others to aim for one object or another.

 

Chloe remained silent at this point, apparently focused more on the effort of climbing than telling her story. That was the main reason that Max heard Nic, as quietly as he spoke, when he realized he was going to do down. She turned back to see him halfway down their little trash mound, off balance. Whatever he was standing on or where ever he had just stepped to cause him the discomfort, Max wasn't taking the chance that he was going to fall and break his neck, so for the second time she lifted her right hand, reached out toward the air and set the world around her right.

 

“Nic,” Max called. “Take it slow down the hill, you're not looking very good.” The man's face paled, which was impressive because in the near-noon sun he gave Chloe a run for her money as the pastiest person Max had ever met. He did, however, slow down. Max noticed that he was no longer clutching his recorder, apparently realizing that they were too busy to keep talking. _All of this stuff meant something to someone once. Convenience, simplicity, help when you really needed it, transportation that got you to work so you could feed your kids... something. This whole town meant something to someone once and now it's all gone._ Max's heart felt heavy in her chest as she watched Chloe move past her instead of stopping near her. Determination was etched into the punk's face, as if seeing her father's car when they first entered was the most painful thing she thought she could have experienced and now, now that she had it behind her, she was going to be unstoppable. Max followed carefully for the next two minutes as Chloe traversed devastation and loss, this junkscape the perfect metaphor for Arcadia Bay. Slowly but surely it became clear that Chloe's goal was not the site where Rachel Amber had been found. Chloe's target was an upturned boat resting beside a handful of shattered cinder blocks whose source Max could guess. _Chloe and Rachel Amber's hideout._

 

As the bluenette crested the belly of the boat, some sort of choked noise emitted from her mouth. Whether it had been a sob or a scream, the sight of the woman's fist blocking the noise as she slowly crouched down, eyes squeezing shut, was grief incarnate. Max thought that the boat, which had been very near there last time Max had seen it, was sturdy enough for her to hurry. She did not look back at Nic, but when he spoke next she could tell from his voice alone that he was holding his recorder again as he approached the boat from just a few feet behind her. Once she got her hands up on the bottom of the boat – or was it the top now? – Max pulled herself up, legs dangling absurdly at first as she tried and failed to find a foothold.

 

“Are – would you like a minute?” Max turned to look at him only once she was sitting on the bottom of the ship. She reached out with her right hand and made a gesture as if to tell him to pull out his recorder, and beckoned him forward. It was, as she had predicted, already in his own hand again. Max turned away and left the men to pull themselves up while she saw to Chloe. The woman in question hadn't shifted one bit since squatting down. She could see by the way Chloe's shoulders rose and fell evenly that there were no tears yet, but the eyes clenched shut spoke of some sort of pain, either that or the desire to block any pain out. The voices of their companions met Max's ears as her left hand worked up and down Chloe's back. In response to this gesture, Chloe turned, without opening her eyes or standing up, and threw her arms around Max's shoulders. For just a moment, the taller woman squeezed her tightly and then drew in a long, deep breath and opened her eyes. When she did, Max understood that they had finally crossed the line into the part of the trip that was going to be miserable for all parties involved. One moment their eyes were locked and the next Chloe pushed to her feet and spun to survey Nic as first he and then Geoff climbed aboard the boat. Max waited for a sign that it was going to shift or slide beneath their feet, but no rocking or even creaking came. Chloe opened her mouth to continue and Max turned her gaze from the woman's face to the remains of the little shed or shack that Chloe and Rachel Amber had once claimed as their own. An old blue station wagon sat where half of it might have stood.

 

“So when I was fifteen, there was just me. Insecure, pissed off, constantly getting high so that I could avoid losing my shit. The Depression Was Strong With This One, and all that. I guess I couldn't handle being the last man standing. What an ingrate, right?” Chloe wiped at her eyes despite the fact that Max could see no tears in them. “One night, I hopped a train a few miles that way,” Chloe pointed east. “Past a park called Culmination State Park, and went out to a shitty punk rock show at an abandoned sawmill. That night I was in pretty good form, man. I yelled at the bouncer until he let me in, shot the shit with my dealer, stole a t-shirt and robbed the asshole selling them for twenty bucks a pop. I wasn't necessarily the law abiding, upright citizen you see before you today.” The humor went over like a lead balloon and Chloe seemed to catch this fact because she did not look back at Nic or Geoff as the men stood up and dusted themselves off. Max was curious about Geoff's face, though. The same look, a sort of recognition Max thought, sat affixed among the man's features, and his eyes once more locked onto Chloe. _What is he seeing?_

 

“I used the money to buy weed, then I pissed off some of the dealer's... friends? Higher ups? I'm still not sure. They decided the way to handle a teenage girl mouthing off at them was to catch her alone and threaten her like the big strong men they were. That was the night that, despite having gone to school with her for _years_ at Blackwell, I actually met Rachel Amber.” Max spotted the contortion of Nic's face. It was not in pain or discomfort or even disorientation, all of which he had been showing since emerging from his friend's truck. This was a type of recognition of its own. Nic Silver definitely knew Rachel Amber's name.

 

“Rachel Amber?” the man asked, as if unsure what he had just heard.

 

“Yeah,” Chloe replied flatly, before exhaling again and turning back toward Nic, as if she couldn't bare to look at the remains of her little hideout any longer. “Later on I figured out how special she was.”

 

“How special she was?” Nic asked. Max did not interrupt him. This was his attempt to turn this into something like a mix between Chloe telling a story and Nic interviewing her. She supposed this had always been coming.

 

“Yeah,” Chloe again answered, though this time she came a little bit alive in a way that made Max unsure if she could look right at the woman. Chloe began to wipe dirt and grime from her jacket first and then her pants and boots. “Not in the romantic way – I mean she totally was but that came later. What I mean was, the next night I learned the hard way: the Rogue Queen of Blackwell, Rachel, had a power.”

 

“A power?” Nic asked her. Max wondered if this was his standard technique, to repeat things back at the interviewee. _How does that usually go for you?_

 

“A power,” Chloe said. “There's a word for it, pyro- uh, pyro- fuck! There's a word for it.” This time, the woman paused in knocking dried mud from her right boot to look up at Max. “You know, fucking Charlie from that Stephen King story you always liked.” Instead of giving Max a chance to produce the word for Chloe, the man conducting the impromptu interview interrupted.

 

“Are you saying that Rachel Amber was a pyrokinetic?”

 

“No, man,” Chloe told him as she withdrew her lighter and what was left of her joint from her pocket. “I'm saying she was _so_ much more than that. She was a force of _fucking_ nature, but yeah, pyrokinetic works for a start. I didn't figure it out for a while, by which time it was too late to do anything but embrace it, but there you have it.” Unable to effect fire herself, Chloe pulled next to Max to try to block the wind blowing toward them through and overtop the junk all around the four people gathered on the bottom of the old boat. Max heard the flick of the lighter as Chloe struggled to get her joint lit, but Max's eyes stayed focused on Nic's doubting face or the frown that formed on Geoff's.

 

“That's pretty hard to swallow,” Nic told them, in a voice that was rather soft, as if he thought that saying it quietly would lessen the blow of telling Chloe that she was full of shit. Max's left hand clenched inside of her jacket pocket. _You knew they wouldn't believe you, not at first. This is why you brought them along to begin with._ Geoff's look, the one suggesting that he knew or saw something in Chloe that Max did not understand, resurfaced. Nic, on the other hand, only looked a little queasy and unsure of himself.

 

“Spit or swallow,” Chloe snapped suddenly. “I don't give a fuck.” Almost as soon as she finished snapping, Max saw the regret in her eyes but a moment later she managed to actually light her spliff. Regret was washed away by a familiar looking hope in her eyes, a hope that if she got just enough of a buzz, whatever she was going through would stop hurting so badly.

 

“Okay,” Nic responded a little flatly, volume back to his voice.

 

“That night, the night we really met,” Chloe inhaled deeply and an unnatural silence passed as she held her breath and then pushed the joint toward Max. This time, Max did not argue. By the time her own throat and chest burned and both of the men with them had again rejected the indulgence, Chloe loosed the smoke in her lungs carefully. “That night those guys decided to jump me and Rachel just – she saw it going on, walked out of the crowd and yelled at them, distracted them long enough for me to get away. I got out of it with a black eye instead of the stabbing the fuckers wanted to give me. Instead of getting out of there like smart people would have, we went right back into the crowd and partied. We were stupid, punkass kids. Besides, what were they going to do, attack us in front of a whole crowd of people? Nah. I think I got pretty taken with her right there and then.” Max figured Chloe was right on that point. Chloe liked that kind of heroism. _Only makes sense, for someone who's a hero herself._ Max was almost certain that the man in the long dark coat, holding the voice recorder aloft was going to collapse when she glanced back to see if he was following or was about to interrupt.

 

Nic wavered on his feet and his eyes rolled momentarily into the back of his head. Chloe fell quiet as Max and Geoff moved simultaneously. Max reached out with her right hand and seized Nic just below his right wrist as the man waved back. If Geoff had not at the same moment reached out to wrap an arm around Nic's shoulders and support him, Max would have followed the former reporter off of the side of the upturned boat. Chloe stumbled forward a step but by the time she had reached out for Max, Nic's eyes were in focus again. _Okay, I've been saving this for me or Chloe but,_ Max reached into her bag once she was sure that Geoff had hold of Nic.

 

“You okay there, buddy?” Geoff asked as the man steadied him. Max freed a sealed bottle of water and passed it over not to Nic but to Geoff.

 

“Yeah, I'm – I'm really sorry,” Nic told them, and he sounded like it, too. Throughout their trip, he had sounded unnerved, overexerted or a little concerned, but there was a new tone in his voice, alongside the apology. He spoke with a level of apprehension that Max didn't understand. They weren't even properly in Arcadia Bay itself, yet.

 

“Tell me what's going on,” Geoff insisted, turning to place himself between Chloe and Max and Nic. Even still, Nic did not keep his voice down.

 

“Blur,” was all Nic said. _Is he having trouble seeing?_ For a few seconds Max pressed close to Chloe's side and received an arm around her shoulders in return while the two of them watched Nic drain about half of the water at Geoff's insistence, not to mention with his assistance. “Alright, I'm sorry, go on.” Chloe looked between Max, Nic and Geoff, but no one moved to tell her they needed to stop so slowly, she did as told, passing off her smoke to Max. Chloe started the next part with gritted teeth.

 

“The next day we cut class together, hopped a train going right along the tracks that you used to be able to see about a hundred feet in that direction,” Chloe pointed, “and we fucked off to Culmination. We used to call it Overlook Park, because there was this nice hill with binoculars you could use to look at a big hunk of the place, up until the treed hiking area started. That day was nice at first. We had a great time, cracking jokes, hanging out, getting closer, until we spotted this couple in the park, kissing under a tree. Rachel and I beat a pretty quick retreat after that. It took some bullshit after, most of which happened right here in this junkyard, before she told me what was going on.” Instead of letting Chloe go on with her story, Nic interrupted her again.

 

“You guys came here?” he asked, his voice again doubtful but this time Max knew it was because he saw this ugly, hellscape instead of what the place had once been to a pair of girls who felt isolated from the rest of the world.

 

“We used to come here pretty much all the time,” Chloe told him, a smirk forming on her face. She turned slightly on the spot and pointed over Geoff's right shoulder. “That pickup truck you saw me working on used to sit right over there. I fixed it up right here.” Max realized that Chloe had calmed down and gotten her emotions in check when her voice did not even waver at the recollection. “Anyway, that night we went back out to the park after arguing here and then splitting up for a few hours and I found out why she was so pissed. That couple we saw kissing was her father and a woman she did not know. Sorry to spoil the end of the story, but it turned out to be her biological mother. She didn’t know this at the time, so she was mad.” Chloe gestured for the joint in Max's hand, or what was left of it, and Max passed it back. It was probably not the brightest choice for either of them to get as high as they were going to be once this was done, but Max had a feeling she would be feeling a lot better in a moment.

 

“She pulled this picture of her and her dad out of her pocket and said she thought her father had been lying to her about something for a long time. Asked for a light. I loaned her my lighter thinking she just wanted to burn her father’s photo. She did _that,_ alright, and tossed it burning into a trash can, knocked it over. That's shitty but normal enough, except that then the fire did something weird. Rachel raged out _hard_ and the fire just - it shot out of the trash can, in a straight line, to a tree a few feet away. The tree caught instantly. A living tree, in the middle of a cool spring. After we left that night, the fire spread. It made the biggest wildfire this part of Oregon had seen in twenty years and no one could get it put out. It burned for a fucking day and a half and then all at once, it all went out, the entire wildfire, _dead_ at the same time.”

 

“I know a thing or two about wildfires,” Geoff interjected. Max was rather glad to hear him speaking and not just Nic in parrot mode. Beside Geoff, Nic still looked as pale as he had a few moments ago, but he did not look like he was about to faint. He did, however, blink his dark eyes a few times as if maybe his sight was still blurry. “That's not how they work.”

 

“No shit,” Chloe agreed.

 

“Then what happened?” the veteran asked her, eyes narrowing. Nic didn't interrupt. Max wondered if Geoff hadn't taken some of the heavy lifting of the conversation off of the man's shoulders intentionally.

 

“See,” Max heard her girlfriend start, voice drawing out with some kind of regret. “the night after we saw her dad and mystery woman making out, Rachel sort of lost her cool, wrecked a family dinner and got the truth out of her dad. Well, most of it. Since _I_ had seen Rachel's biomom talking to my drug dealer earlier that day, I knew if I could get Frank, the dealer for Arcadia Bay, to talk, I could get Rachel to her mother so that they could meet. It turns out Frank's boss didn't like that idea so when we tried to set up a meeting right here in the junkyard,” Chloe stopped, pointed off about thirty feet to what must have once been a path through the junkyard, “well, the big boss came by. Long story short, Rachel got stabbed, nearly bled out on the seat of my truck.”

 

“The one you'd fixed up?” Nic queried. Max thought she heard strength returning to his voice. Something wasn't right and he wasn't telling them everything, but she felt like Chloe had had enough interruptions on her plate without Max adding one to demand that Nic tell them what was going on.

 

“The one I fixed up that day, same one you saw back by the house. Thing is, when she passed out in the passenger seat, the wildfire died, all at once. They got her stitched up and I looked into things on my own. I know this sounds shitty to hear after coming all this way, but that's about all of that you get to know. She and her mother met once and then after a year or so, Rachel started to get too restless for Arcadia Bay.” Chloe turned back toward the shack and lowered herself so that she was sitting on the edge of the boat, feet dangling off. _She's getting ready to climb down,_ Max realized. “To cope with it, she ended our relationship and started to pull away from me. That's how I reason it out now, at least.” Chloe spoke with a surprising lack of emotion. It upset Max more than if she had gone weepy and remorseful. “After some therapy and a few years to think, that's what I decided. Back then I just knew I’d lost her and it hurt me, but I was devoted to her. She’d saved me from myself, in more than one way, on more than one occasion.

 

“Then, one day about three years after I met her she disappeared. Around that time she was hooking up with Frank and crushing on some other guy. Then she up and disappeared and like that, it was like someone cut open the old wounds. Let’s just say I didn’t really like who I turned into. When I wasn’t canvassing the town with missing posters, I was getting high or shitfaced or plotting to get the truck interstate worthy so that when Rachel came back we could leave this town in the dust. One night I go to a party. I’m so desperate to get this going, that I pick a mark. A local boy called Nathan Prescott.”

 

“The boy whose body was found with Ms. Amber's?” Nic queried. Max did not know that Nic had read that far into the situation in Arcadia Bay but she guessed that if he was trying to look for anything weird, the police finding those two bodies together in one grave, one significantly decomposed, would have registered as very strange. Nic's eyes were now razor sharp, but he did not move from where he and Geoff stood a step behind Max, who in turn had decided to give Chloe her space.

 

“The very same,” Chloe confirmed for him as she tossed the remains of the joint out to settle among all the other trash. “I figured, we’ll get drunk, maybe I’ll toss him a pity fuck and then I’ll find something in his room while he's passed out, steal it, sell it and get my truck fixed. That family was fucking loaded to bare and the only one of them that wasn’t an asshole was the one who was never around. I thought, 'maybe I’ll steal his $5000 camera' or 'maybe I'll swipe his laptop.' Either way, I didn’t expect him to drug me and he didn’t expect to fuck up my dose.” Nic had clearly not expected that turn of events. She could see the man working over what this meant for the story as a whole. He couldn't know that Chloe was setting up the return of the distant asshole, Max Caulfield: Shitty Friend, Shittier Superhero. “I woke up in the middle of whatever the creep was doing, kicked him, knocked over some lamp in his room and ran like fuck. I armed up from my step-douche's arsenal and decided he was going to get my truck fixed for me after all. After school one day, _way_ after I had been expelled from Blackwell for _whatever_ stupid thing did me in, I texted him to meet me in the girl’s restroom, walked in and, well, he had the drop on me. Drew a gun on me, threatened my life.”

 

“He threatened your life?” Nic asked. This time, Max saw Chloe's annoyance with this tactic of questioning, she could read it in the straight, stiff way Chloe held her neck. There was more tension in her girlfriend's voice when she spoke, not exactly answering, mostly just continuing.

 

“See, what I failed to take into account was that Nathan had always been mentally ill but by this point he had gone off the rails the same way I had and he was violent.”

 

“And what happened?”

 

“Ah,” Chloe sighed, “that’s where it depends on who you ask.” Without a warning, Chloe leaned back on her hands, took a deep breath and pushed forward. Nic called out in some surprise as Chloe lowered herself down from the boat. Max swallowed. She knew exactly what Chloe meant.

 

“What do you mean it depends on who you ask?” Nic queried as he approached the side of the boat and eased himself down after her. Max took one look back at Geoff to see that he was watching not Nic, but Chloe as she walked toward the pile of crushed cinder blocks and then followed Nic down from the boat. At one point she was supporting herself by her arms entirely and, finding no sure footing, Max had to drop and hope for the best. Nic looked frustrated as Chloe led them toward the remains of the little shed.

 

“You know, Rachel and I had a place out here. It was just a cinder block shed, but it was like, it was _our_ place. We even furnished it and hung out here all the time.” Nic did not push his question. Instead, a look of pity settled on his face and while Max understood what prompted it she did not care for it. Chloe's voice was no longer dispassionate. It was, definitely, full of hurt. Max kept quiet even as the others did as Chloe pushed forward, kicked spot clear which might have once been near the entrance and glanced about. “Didn't have a door though, had to use – ah.” Chloe made for the station wagon to her right and knelt down. “Had to use this.” As Max watched, Chloe slid a twisted piece of sheet metal from beneath the vehicle. “It used to be a lot taller and straighter, though.” The taller woman leaned it carefully against the car as a cool gust of wind caught them all upside the face. Max caught each of her companions shivering. “Hey,” Chloe called suddenly, sounding affronted. Max blinked at her. “Someone's been out here. Huh.”

 

“What do you mean?” Nic asked her. Chloe stepped to the side and pointed toward the sheet metal, but Max could not make out the text as Chloe stared at it.

 

“Someone's been tagging on my turf, cheeky fu-” Chloe's mouth shut in the middle of her expression of frustration and then she backed away from the car. “Okay,” the woman started, looking around as if upset. “We just got off on the exit to Weirdsville.”

 

“I thought this whole town was Weirdsville?” Geoff joked, though his serious visage and narrowed eyes did not match the jovial tone. Chloe retreated from car faster still, as if she had just touched it and gotten burnt. Whatever it was that the woman had seen did not sit well with her, not at all.

 

“What's wrong?” Max pushed past Nic carefully, treading softly across the gap between her and Chloe.

 

“Look,” Chloe said, pointing again toward the sheet metal only this time from several steps back. Max did as interjected. There, in bold black lettering somehow not faded by the weather, was the phrase ' _The Dreamer'._ Max felt oddly cool reading it and when Nic repeated it out loud, Chloe stepped further back away from it.

 

“What does it mean?” Nic asked. He sounded intent on having _this_ question answered.

 

“Nothing,” Chloe lied, staring right at Max as if to ask her for some help. Max only shook her head. It made no sense to keep exactly what was so disturbing about the phrase from Nic and Geoff. Chloe had been considering telling them, anyway, right?

 

“There's no reason not to tell them,” Max muttered. Chloe did not disagree with her, but the look of discomfort on her face was jarring. She had held up better under this return to Arcadia Bay than Max had expected. Hell, Max had, too. Still, it was probably not even noon yet and the day had already been upsetting and strange enough that Max half considered going back to the hotel, herself. _Chloe doesn't want to be here anymore,_ Max realized as the woman shifted nervously from foot to foot and chewed on her upper lip for a moment.

 

“It makes no sense,” Chloe hissed to Max. Then, to Nic and Geoff she said, “If I didn't know better, I'd say this was about me.”

 

“About you?” Nic asked.

 

“Rachel Amber wasn't the only person from Arcadia Bay to come out with powers.”

 

“”You're saying you have some kind of supernatural ability?” To Nic's credit, he kept the doubt from his voice this time. It was weird that he would express it so openly for someone who wasn't around to defend herself, but maybe he was just scared of angering Chloe out in the middle of nowhere, knowing she was armed. _No one's gonna hurt anyone else here,_ Max told herself.

 

“I am,” Chloe answered. Her voice shook more than her arms and legs did as Chloe backed further from the car until she was back where she had started at the edge of the foundation. “It started around the time I met Rachel. You know about lucid dreaming?”

 

“I do.”

 

“It was kind of like that. Vivid, bright dreams, except it took me time to have any kind of control over them. They were intense, and I spent a lot of time talking to myself in them, only the other 'me' looked like my father. Had a few after that first week, but they became rarer as Rachel pulled away and then vanished altogether when she more or less stopped showing any affection. That first half year though? It was fucking great and the dreams were intense. They weren’t always in my head either. Sometimes, the other me, the one that looked and talked like my father - sometimes, and I know it’s going to sound crazy, sometimes I talked to him while I was awake. He’d just show up if things were stressful. It’s kind of weird to think how I forgot about it.

 

“Forgot about it?” Nic asked.

 

“Yeah, Polly,” Chloe snapped, her voice straining under the weight of a new wave of less than pleasant emotion. “You want a cracker or can I finish this shit before I start thinking about swallowing that hot lead I was talking about last night?” It took Max a second to understand Chloe's response and eventually even Nic made a noise somewhat between a scoff and a laugh. Chloe seemed to take that as a sign to continue. “I forgot about it. I forgot about it for years. It’s back now and not like it used to be but I forgot about it for a long time. Maybe things with Rachel kind of broke me. Either way, that’s not important. What’s important is that someone is tagging up my fucking turf and that’s not cool. I don't step on _their_ turf and spray 'The Douchebag' everywhere, do I?” Max tried to laugh, but she was busy watching incredulity, confusion and ultimately the same pity Nic had just been wearing pass across Geoff's face. Nic was starting to look a little on edge, himself.

 

“Is it your turf if you don’t live here anymore?” Max asked Chloe when too much silence had come to pass.

 

“Well they don’t either,” Chloe insisted. “No one lives here.”

 

Max rather hoped she was right. She would have hated to run into some liquored up hillbilly survivalist like Chloe had been joking about a couple of days back, living off of the grid and unkind to trespassers.

 

“Anyway,” Chloe said, turning away from the sheetmetal which had disturbed her so, her left hand rubbing up and down the length of her right arm in a gesture that Max recognized as being an attempt at self-soothing. “That's it. That's all of it.”

 

“All of it?” Nic repeated her, again. Chloe's response was to give the man a long-suffering look.

 

“All of the story that's mine to tell. Well, all you're getting from me, at least. Max will tell you whatever she thinks you need to know, and since you’re here, I guess that’s going to be everything.” Chloe sounded more against the idea of telling them everything than she had ever been in the moment. Max hoped there was not a fight waiting for her when they got somewhere private. She hoped this would not drive a wedge between them. She hoped that Chloe understood how much she needed this.

 

“It is,” Max finally managed to croak out, “but we need to move locations for that.”

 

“Where to?” Geoff asked, trying to keep a spirited tone in his voice but doing little to mute the mixture of emotions with which he was watching Chloe.

 

“Blackwell Academy. Chloe brought us out here because she wanted you to see this place. It’s important to her and Rachel and it’s important to our story. Blackwell is important too.”

 

“Important?”

 

“Yeah, Nic, important,” Max responded, suddenly aware of how annoying that tactic was when questioning someone now that she was on the receiving end of it. “Blackwell is the first place I ever saw someone die, and that's how this whole thing started.”

 

“Who?” Nic asked her. In response, Max gestured with her chin to Chloe as the bluenette crossed the distance between them to pause beside Max and rest her left hand in Max's back right pocket. Max grinned at the bit of cheek, but neither Chloe's attempt to lighten the mood or Max's own will held out very well. “I'm sorry – this is a podcast, so the listeners couldn't see that. Did you just try to tell me that you saw Chloe die there?”

 

“It's the first place I saw her die, first of three.” Her stomach tightened slightly. “First of four, actually, I guess. I think you only need to hear about two.” Max watched as the man in front of her shuffled beneath his coat, turned to look at Geoff as if to read his appraisal of the situation. Nothing that Max or Chloe had said so far had made any kind of dent in Nic's skepticism. He looked as if he thought that they were lying at best, deranged at worst. Max tried hard not to be any more offended about not being believed as she had been about the man responding to Chloe talking about Rachel in the same way. Still, the concern and distrust on his face while Geoff's own became surprisingly impassive was enough to push Max to snapping as Chloe had been doing. Nic could be an invasive and dismissive individual when he was unsure of what he was hearing. “Look, you’re already out here. What’s the worst that can happen if you listen on?”

 

“A-alright,” was Nic's response.

 

“You might as well turn that off. It's going to be a bitch climbing back.” Max saw a question on Chloe's face, but when she paused to watch the woman, to give her a chance to ask it, no sound came. Max took that to mean they were done there.

 

After far too long of a trip back to the cars, Chloe pushed herself back further through the open hatch in the back of Geoff's truck. Geoff, his back against the seats behind him as he too looked out at the trail of devastation behind them, closed his eyes. He had not spoken in about thirty seconds after keeping engaged in conversation with her for the entire walk back to the truck. Without opening his eyes the man's left hand rose and he reached out to flip the lid on Chloe and Max's cooler wide open. Moving the cooler to the truck had been the best idea Chloe had contributed to their entire trip thus far. While the junkyard itself was a ways behind them, evidence of it was still fairly visible around them: among other pieces of debris, the remains of a dollhouse and what might have once been a refrigerator were genuinely within spitting distance of where Chloe sat. _He's speaking my language,_ she decided. Half in and half out of their respective front seats, Nic and Max programmed Geoff's GPS as first Geoff and then Chloe secured a beer.

 

“You've been through some shit,” Geoff said, as if this was the summary of the things she had told him so far that he had long been deliberating on. It was not eloquent and Chloe was still not sure what she would call the look she'd caught on the man's face when she had first noticed him staring at her on the way back (much less how she felt about Nic's obvious skepticism) but the statement had the advantage of being true. Chloe decided that maybe, now that Nic was not interrupting her, parroting her words back at her as if she was too stupid to understand the sounds her own mouth was making, it was time to calm down. The tabs on their beers sounded off in unison and the two in the front of the vehicle paused mid sentence. Chloe turned her head slightly and spotted them both staring back at her and Geoff. She didn't _see_ any rolling eyes, but she _hoped_ she'd earned that response.

 

“Yeah?” Chloe asked, as if to see what else he had to say. Chloe raised the can in her left hand to her lips and drank. _Tastes like shit, but it's ice cold._ Of course the best feature of the beverage in her grasp was that if she were to knock back enough of them, she might actually not want to scream at the very _air_ around her until it apologized for taking everything she had ever loved from her.

 

“Well, first _she_ moves off,” he gestured over his shoulder toward the front of the cab, “then your father, your ex and now your whole damn town.”

 

“Yeah,” Chloe said again, this time more agreeing that yes, that was, in fact the story she had just told them both. She glanced down at her legs as she scooted farther back into the truck. A few snags along the way had left a couple of new tears in her jeans. Dirt and mud caked the ankles of the pants. All told, she was dressed not too terribly abnormally for herself. This thought provided her the first glimmer of real amusement since crossing into Arcadia Bay. When she looked back up, Geoff was again watching her. At being caught, he gave a crooked grin that made him look a lot younger than she knew he was and then turned to look back out. Chloe kept her eye on the man, though she no longer thought that either of them had a reason to give a damn about the weapon the other was carrying. Chloe tipped her can up and openly sought to drain it.

 

“Thing is, a lot of people would hear that story and say they don't understand how people survive that. Most people don't actually understand losing someone. Not until they experience it, and I don't mean the pain of watching a loved one die, I mean watching someone there one breath and not the next. Even less people get losing _everything._ ” Chloe had not looked away even as she continued to drain the first drink all at once. Watching Geoff revealed the transformation playing out across his face: he wasn't pitying her, he was looking at her with some sort of odd respect that made her immediately uncomfortable. “The human will can take a lot more than most people think, anyway.” Geoff turned away, perhaps reading her discomfort. “I'm, uh, I'm sorry you had to find that out.” There was something genuine and honest in the statement, so to cope with how fucking absurd the whole thing seemed to her, Chloe tried to play it cool.

 

“Nah, you don't believe a word of what I said, anyway.” With this, she lifted her left hand, listened to the unsatisfying crunch of the can in her grasp and hurled it out onto what was left of the road. The refuse of human expansion, greed and consumerism had long since spilled out of its cage, dragged out no doubt by the tornado which had killed the town. What was one more can of beer in the fact of that? _Or two,_ Chloe thought as she immediately reached for a second. “Neither of you do.” Chloe jerked her head back to indicate the man talking with her girlfriend in the front of the vehicle. It sounded as if Max was reading out the address to Blackwell Academy. She savored the sound of her second drink popping open.

 

“Maybe not parts of it,” Geoff admitted. “But no one who doesn't understand loss talks about it like it's an asshole you have to keep at bay by shit talking it until it's two inches tall or kicking ass until it stays the fuck away. No one who doesn't know what it's like to watch everything turn to shit in an instant understands the power in mocking loss, telling it that it can't get you. They damn sure don't understand why people lose their shit.” Chloe did not stop in her quest to get drunk: she began to drain the newly opened beverage but she did return her attention to the man, taking careful note of the deepening of his voice or the darkening of his tone, the creases in his forehead coming to stand out as he wrinkled his brow. _Doesn't look like he's having the time of his life, either._

 

“Crappy as it is, losing your shit is how you survive when it gets that bad. Doesn't mean you shouldn't try to fix it, doesn't mean you shouldn't do _everything you can_ to fix it, but losing your shit isn't the bad part. The bad part is when you can't find it again.” Beside her, every version of Geoff van Sant she had seen personally, been exposed to through Nic's Podcast or even made up in her head vanished. He wasn't talking about her, or at least not about her alone. His eyes widened as he spoke and they were no longer fixed on her but on some ephemeral thing that happened to be in her direction. He was there with her, but staring at something a thousand miles away. Geoff's left hand rose as if to run through his hair but it was still holding onto his relatively untouched first beer. She watched him look at it in confusion and then settle the hand back down. What disturbed Chloe the most was that she had seen this behavior once or twice before, in a man named David Madsen.

 

“Did you ever find _your_ shit?” Chloe asked the man after a few seconds of silence. She desperately wanted to hear him say, 'yeah, give it time, kid' or something of the sort. Chloe felt a little more still than she had when she first sat down, oddly comfortable even as she sat rigid. Now empty, her second can joined the first. She did not wait for him to speak before starting her third, or letting out a loud, healthy belch to relieve the pressure building in her chest. After not answering for a few moments, not looking entirely away from her nor really focusing on her yet, Geoff lifted his left hand and followed her example in draining his beer and then discarding it. Unlike Chloe, Geoff did not reach for another. _Oh, right, only_ he _can drive this thing._ Finally, Geoff van Sant, a tall man with brown hair, a slightly worn looking face and one crooked front tooth as if he had been punched in the jaw and left it at a disadvantageous angle, came back to himself. “Did you?” she prompted.

 

The man's answer was a smile and a wink. It no longer looked as real as it might have the day before, even during their walk to the convenience store when they talked with one another in surprisingly blunt, open terms about who they were protecting and why they were protecting them, a talk which had convinced her to trust him provisionally.

 

“Not all of it,” he told her. She did not feel crushed at this revelation, nor did she find it to be levity, no matter the tone of his voice or the look of relaxation on his face. “Just enough of it to get out of bed, do my morning workout and chase down Tanis in my own ways.” Geoff spun slightly toward her, reached out and instead of trying to grab her for any reason, seized the cooler and spun it toward her as if to say he wasn't going to be having anymore and she should indulge. “I'm sorry about your family. I'm sorry about your ex.” Maybe it was coincidence that he chose to bring up family first, but Chloe didn't think so. She had to remember as she thought about this man that he was not an obstacle or an inanimate object. He had a past of his own, a tiny part of it known to anyone who listened to the Tanis Podcast.

 

“I'm sorry about your brother,” Chloe told him earnestly before she raised the drink in her hand to her lips. She paused before drinking. “The one thing I'm sure about with you is that you care _way_ more than you like to pretend, about everything.”

 

“Yeah?” Geoff told her in a louder, amused voice before he chuckled once. His fucking _laugh_ no longer sounded as convincing as it might have done to her. What the hell _was_ the man in front of her? “Nic says that too.” Chloe leaned forward over the cooler and responded in a stage whisper.

 

“Don't tell your friend, but sometimes he can be pretty sharp.”

 

“I heard that,” Nic declared in a voice that sounded like he might be pretending to preen under the compliment.

 

“I warned you guys that no one would believe this,” Chloe said to the vehicle at large. She turned to face forward and look into Max's eyes. She could remember how angry she had once been at a younger Max Caulfield. She could remember how devastated she had been for and by Max after Arcadia Bay and she could remember a hundred other feelings, horrible and transcendental alike that Max Caulfield had dragged up in her whether intentionally or not.

 

“Maybe not,” Geoff said beside her as Chloe finished her third drink and reached for two more full, cold cans. In short order she was going to be feeling something. Breakfast had been rather light. “Even still, I've been in a lot of shit in my time and I would have done a lot better with people by my side with even an ounce of what you've got.”

 

“You might not be the biggest prick on Earth, yourself.” Chloe assured the man beside her. His response was to raise an invisible glass in toast.

 

“Shove one of those into a pocket,” he muttered as Chloe started to stand. She did as he suggested, getting the picture. Either beer she was holding fit well enough into the side pockets of her jacket, even if the weight felt a little strange there. As Geoff shoved two more drinks into her newly free hands and then shut the cooler, Chloe thought she might like this man after all.


	7. The Warrior

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't be able to upload on Sunday, so here it is now. More bad news? I won't be able to upload next week at all. Simply put, I'll be busy at a convention, being a happy fucking nerd. So, I thought, to make it up to y'all a bit, I'd post a summary/teaser for the fic I'll be writing after this one up on my twitter over at @LiSTheOV. I hope you'll check it out. :) As for this chapter, hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own the rights to more or less nothing seen here, nothing from Life is Strange or the Public Radio Alliance or Pacific Northwest Stories. This is entirely a fanbased work for personal enjoyment. 

* * *

#  Chapter Seven: The Warrior

_ After the story you heard before the break, I was, I admit, beginning to have my doubts. I had driven or, more precisely, ridden six and a half hours from Seattle, Washington to Arcadia Bay, Oregon, put other leads on hold and put myself through  _ some  _ stress for the sake of getting the Arcadia Bay story, to find out whether it held any importance in my search for Tanis. The start of that whole process had consisted of going out into a field of refuse, rust and desolation and listening to this woman, Chloe Price, tell us about Rachel Amber, apparently her ex-girlfriend and a supposed pyrokinetic. Adding in Chloe's emotional breakdown and her story about being able to project her dreams into the real world and it all sounded too ridiculous. The only thing that held me back from really distrusting what was being told to me was not the surety with which Chloe Price stuck to her guns or how offended she seemed to be when she thought I doubted her. It was the fact that from the moment we crossed into what was technically the boundaries of Arcadia Bay, my mind had been under assault from The Blur. _

 

_ It had never felt like being attacked, before. At worst The Blur had been there, a passenger along for the ride with me. At best, once or twice during my time in The Calm it had seemed like a guide. This - this was The Blur made alive and angry, less a disconcerting humming sensation than the warning buzzing of an angry beehive. Considering how close I had come to serious injury once or twice, save for a timely warning from Max Caulfield, I thought that I had to take the trip back to the cars carefully and since it seemed that for the moment neither of the women were talking, I didn't record. Instead I spent the time going over what we had just learned, well, what bit of it had stuck in my brain. Not only had Chloe Price insisted that the woman whose body was found in a shallow grave in that very junkyard had been some kind of pyrokinetic, but Max Caulfield insisted that Chloe had died,  _ four  _ times. I got the feeling she didn't mean that Chloe had been medically dead and resuscitated, either. For a dead woman, Chloe Price remained talkative on our trip back. At first, I didn't pay a lot of attention to it, but Geoff engaged the woman on a very personal level. Most of it came down to how Chloe had handled the isolation she had hinted at in her youth. The gist I managed to gather in between being half led through the ruined countryside by Geoff and Max Caulfield was that her methods of coping had amounted to booze, drugs and sex; not necessarily the most uncommon response to emotional trauma. _

 

_ I got myself together well enough by the time we reached our vehicles to join Max in the front seat of Geoff's truck so that we could go over programming the GPS and talk out the route. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Geoff and Chloe continued to talk, but they required lubrication. Sensing that the conversation might be helpful for the woman, Max began to slow down and repeat herself in the process of passing me the information to program into the GPS. At first, I thought she was doing it because she had some inkling of how muddled my head was, or because the anxiety that I could hear rising in her voice was affecting  _ her,  _ but I caught on eventually and played along. We gave the two in the back a short time to talk and, in Chloe's case, drink and then eventually Max led Chloe away. _

 

Nic watched Max lead Chloe to the little Ford Fiesta. The unnatural bulges at the side pockets of her jacket suggested that Nic had not been imagining things. Geoff had passed her extra beer after watching her down several in a surprisingly short time. As the taller woman handed off the car keys, Max slowly shifted from walking beside her to walking just behind her as if worried Chloe was going to fall. Nic, on the other hand, settled back in the passenger seat of the vehicle and waited for Geoff. Using the rear view mirror he could see Geoff half-sitting in the back, a contemplative and uncharacteristically somber look on his face.  _ Is he worried about being out here all of the sudden and not telling me for some reason?  _ Or maybe the reason should have been obvious. After all, the Blur was still active in his head, obscuring his thoughts, causing the tension in his neck to grow so severe he was beginning to develop a headache and, more disturbingly, making it rather hard to hear. Everything sounded as if he was catching snatches of it from a distant clearing. None of that was as concerning as this sense of  _ force  _ working itself outward from somewhere deep in his brain. He felt like a compass needle being drawn to every point on a compass simultaneously. Compared to that, the nausea barely registered.

 

By the time the Ford Fiesta was running ahead, Geoff had already settled back into his seat, leaned past Nic to pull something from the back floorboard and come up with a metal canteen of water and a twinkie. Without asking if Nic wanted them, the man shoved first the snack and the drink into his hands. Nic had a feeling it would have all been dumped on his lap if he hadn't reached out. Geoff's face, while no longer as somber, did not look like a man willing to take no for an answer. While Nic balanced the provisions on his knees, Geoff dug his keys from his pocket.  _ Maybe eating something small will calm my stomach at least?  _ The nausea, the tension and the headache had a chance, however small, of being down to not eating very well that morning after drinking the night before.  _ I mean, I've gone through worse days running off of less than a couple of donuts from a bakery. _

 

“So,” the man started, his voice laced with a forced casualness which Nic barely picked up across a distance which sounded untraversable. “Wanna tell me what's going on with you?” That, all told, was a fair question considering his deteriorating mental and physical state. If the headache got any worse the pain alone was going to drive his nausea to new heights. Nic would hate to throw up inside of Geoff's ride.

 

“From the  _ moment  _ we got into town, I've been feeling the Blur. At least, I think it is.”

 

“You think?”

 

“It's not like before. Before, according to my journals and what I remember from the trip into the Calm, the Blur was like... kind of like a guide. It tipped me off or pulled me toward something and, yeah, it made it hard to think or focus but this  _ hurts. _ It's almost like a siren in my head, one of those old air raid sirens from World War II. I'm not being pulled toward anything, it's more like I'm being pulled toward  _ everything. _ I'm having trouble hearing, much less thinking.”

 

“And how bad is it now?” Geoff asked. Nic wanted to explain that to him, it sounded as if Nic had rolled down his window and heard someone two or three lanes of traffic over ask him how he was feeling. As soon as he opened his mouth, though, a better metaphor came to mind.

 

“Not getting any worse, but not getting any better. You sound like you're talking to me through a  _ really  _ bad connection.”

 

“Do the others too?” Geoff prompted. It was such a strange question that part of Nic's mind wanted to seize on it and analyze it, but the moment he tried he felt his head throb. The headache which had creeped up on him all this time seemed to have made more space in his mind somehow and the Blur had surged out of its hiding spot to fill it. He felt his throat close up as Geoff muttered an 'aha' and put the vehicle into drive. While Max and Geoff began the process of turning around safely in this minefield of decay, Nic pulled himself together.

 

“Yeah, everyone does. Why?”

 

“No reason, especially,” the man informed him, shooting one sideways glance at Nic and looking slightly annoyed by something before focusing on the – well, Nic wouldn't call it a road. “Just important to have all the facts on the situation. Now, eat your fucking twinkie and drink some water. Finish it all if you want. I've got a few bottles in the back.” Nic tried to chuckle at the realization that his annoyance had been at Nic for not eating, but he did not feel like smiling. “Got the GPS all set up?”

 

“Yeah,” Nic told the man as he closed his eyes and unwrapped the twinkie by feel alone. The one thing he could pick out for certain about Geoff's voice was a lack of something that Nic felt in spades: concern. Geoff wasn't worried about their situation. Nic leaned his head back in an attempt to get the knot in the back of his neck to loosen up, to take some of the pressure off of his head. It did not work, but he kept his eyes closed as he took his first bite. The familiar spongy texture was pleasant, but exaggerated in the moment and the minute he tasted cream, it  _ felt  _ gross.

 

“I'm buying that girl some beer when we get back.” Geoff promised Nic. “Not that there's not more back at the hotel.” Nic struggled to swallow the first bite, unsure why he felt revulsion at the hallowed creamy filling of the snack in his hand. The vehicle slowly began to pick up speed as Nic spun the top loose on the canteen between his knees without opening his eyes. He took a long, slow sip and forced the whole mess down. Something pallatable to him only yesterday was now so difficult he had to choke it down. Perhaps the Blur was to blame or maybe it was the stress. Nic was ready to blame both.

 

“I'm sure of one thing, and only that one thing,” he admitted, begrudgingly.

 

“What's that?”

 

“She was really upset, or she's an amazing actress.”

 

“That part was definitely not acting,” Geoff promised him. Nic could not risk opening his eyes yet, so he didn't turn to try to read Geoff's face. He considered pushing the man for more, but if Geoff wasn't offering and Nic couldn't think any deeper than the surface of their situation, pushing seemed like a poor idea, wasted effort and energy. Over the next few minutes, Nic made a habit of opening his eyes for a few seconds at a time and slowly but surely got used to the sights, the light of the approaching noon.  _ Or maybe it's already past.  _ Nic wasn't going to check his phone for the time. He moved as little as he could, more focused on breathing steadily, keeping a check on the Blur and trying not to throw up what little food he had consumed in the way of a twinkie during their trip.

 

The debris field thinned out the closer they got to a larger, paved road. Eventually, Geoff followed Max and Chloe into a left turn out onto that road and they were officially on their way to Arcadia Bay proper. It did not take them long to run into a pair of barriers stretched out across the road. Nic wouldn't have even placed it as a mile from the junkyard – or what had once been a junkyard. Of course, the car ahead was the first to come to a stop and Nic frowned to himself as their ride followed suit. The only thought that he could form properly in his head was that this was a disappointing road bump in their trip.

 

“We're gonna have to find a way around,” he sighed. The Blur thrummed in his head and he lowered it to rub at his temples.  _ Is it getting better?  _ Geoff's chuckle beside him seemed a bit derisive, so he opened his eyes to see the man unbuckling. It was true that the barriers only looked to be made of a pretty thick plastic but – were they just going to move them out of the way? Geoff certainly seemed to think so.

 

“Hang tight, buddy.” Ahead, both Chloe and Max stepped out of their car. As the other three approached the barriers, Nic watched, feeling a bit helpless. Even still, whether the Blur was starting to calm or not, he thought that getting out of the car was likely to result in guaranteed time doubled over, emptying his stomach and he could not really afford that. Even turning his head left and right to watch Chloe try her damndest to walk behind Max and Geoff as if she were not inebriated hurt. For a few seconds, the three simple talked and then, one by one, bent down and put their weight against one of the barriers. While the top looked like plastic, the base of the barriers must have been weighed down by cement, because it took the three of them several seconds to make any progress. Though, once they got it to move at all, that seemed to be the cue for all three to put their backs into it, so to speak. Slowly but surely, half of the road into Arcadia Bay opened up before them.  _ Or because of them. _

 

Nic watched, the throbbing in his head dulling, as the three again exchanged words. Nic was fairly certain that Chloe gestured a bit exaggeratedly toward Geoff's vehicle, which he could only take to mean she was talking about him. When the two women finally returned to their car, Chloe walked a bit more calmly and directly, as if the exertion had cleared her head a little. While Nic saw somberness on their faces, Geoff walked back to the truck with a smirk and laughed as he settled back into the driver's seat and buckled up.

 

“What's so funny?” Nic asked as the car ahead started.

 

“Chloe once told me she could drink  _ me  _ under the table and she's already not walking a straight line. If she doesn't clear up fast, Max is going to have to lead her around so she doesn't trip.” Nic smiled, more at Geoff's amusement than anything else, and in doing so realized that the Blur was not hurting him as much. More precisely, his neck and head were no longer hurting as much.  _ Maybe the food and water did have more to do with it. _ Over the next five minutes of travel, two things happened. First, the Blur finally, mercifully began to quiet, inch by inch, mile by mile. Secondly, the two vehicles passed from countryside into the tiny town of Arcadia Bay proper.

 

It looked like, to Nic's untrained eyes, what he imagined warzones looked like from the ground. Even on the edge of town the majority of the buildings he was seeing were crumpled and collapsed, vague stretches of wall or the short, stubby outlines of foundations. The rest were just rubble entirely. In fact, it was hard to tell if some of them had ever been buildings or were simply sites where rubble from one attempt to find survivors in a nearby house or business had been dumped. Deeper in, it became clear that wind and water damage were not the only destructive forces that had been at work in Arcadia Bay the day it died. Reports  _ had  _ indicated that a handful of fires had broken out, mostly minor but a couple of them fairly large. The occasional pile of scorched rubble gave evidence to this fact.

 

Even after turning off of what must have been a pretty big road through town, they had a fairly nice path ahead. Save for the occasional debris which had probably been blown into the road during stormy weather, there was a lane for them to travel down. There was, of course, still risk of something damaging a tire, but that was a risk Geoff had agreed to take.  _ Maybe they cleared this path for first responders?  _ That made a certain amount of sense. What Nic knew for sure was that they were not seeing any less carnage as they got away from the seaside. In fact, if anything, there was less left of some of the buildings they were passing. The remains of an upturned van caught his eye, a hole clean through its windshield. A block away, a car seat lay on the grass in front of what once must have been a large home judging by the rubble left behind. He hoped that the vehicle and the seat were unconnected.

 

Still, the sight woke in him a question he had long ago set aside asking. It was also the first time that the Blur had cleared enough to allow any deeper thought to really take place since coming to Arcadia Bay. The question was, with all of the loss of life involved in Arcadia Bay's destruction, was he acting too unethically? Was this  _ right?  _ The feeling in his stomach might have been the Blur's effects, or it might have been genuine guilt. These outlandish, crazy stories he was getting, were they  _ worth  _ reporting when it came to a town where over a thousand people had lost their lives in such a short span of time? Nic bit his tongue as the homes began to thin out. If, after this, he decided to leave in the night or even first thing in the morning, he and Geoff could go. No one would be able to stop them, after all. There was all the possibility in the world that the condition he was in in the moment played a role in him asking these questions at all. The good news was, the feeling in his stomach was not accompanied by the urge to vomit anymore. In fact, his headache faded fast. While the town itself grew thinner and thinner, they seemed to be moving away from whatever was upsetting the Blur.  _ Or is it containing the Blur? Or, do I contain it? _

 

His head still buzzed a bit, he felt pins and needles in his limbs and deeper thought was still difficult, but the Blur had dulled so much he was sure that it was leaving him when the first glimpse of the remains of Blackwell came into view amidst trees both felled and still standing. From what he could tell at least a corner of what looked like the main building still stood, partially, but it was clear that as first Max and then Geoff turned into a small parking lot that was only half clear of debris and damaged vehicles that they were going to be walking onto a campus in ruins. If these women had any dreams of seeing their alma mater anywhere near intact, they had likely been wrecked by even their brief glimpse of the main building while driving past. Max parked in one spot, as if there was anyone around to care about how one parked and Geoff, perhaps to be contrary, parked across three right at the clearest edge of the lot.

 

Max and Chloe were the first out of their vehicles. As Nic emerged, he realized that much as he felt better, felt as if the Blur had all but left him, Chloe stood surprisingly strong and cognizant, considering she had been chugging whole beers less than half an hour ago. The truck fell silent and, after a moment or two of stalling, Geoff emerged from the vehicle with a plastic bottle of water in his hand. The four gathered around Chloe's and Max's car, Geoff waving the water enticingly toward Chloe, who accepted it without a word. Nic slid his eyes from her face to her partner's. Max was not watching to see how Chloe was doing, nor did she seem to be observing the wreckage filling half of the parking lot, even though Chloe was staring sadly at a small, brown moped in the farthest corner of the lot. Max was watching  _ him, _ her dark blue eyes strangely impassive and appraising.  _ I must've freaked them out back there.  _ His state had almost certainly been glaringly obvious and alarming but he felt relatively normal standing on the edge of Blackwell Academy grounds. Rather, he felt as normal as anyone could standing among so much destruction.

 

Even his earlier concerns about the morality of the investigation felt less intense in the moment, as he listened to Geoff and the women talk to one another. He still had not decided whether or not he and Geoff were going to bother remaining overnight or leave for home as soon as they were done there. So far, these two sounded like two disturbed young women who had fed into a shared delusion as some sort of coping mechanism for their mutual pasts and the stress between them. No doubt all of this had been exacerbated by their shared trauma.

 

“Are you good to go?” Max asked him, her voice surprisingly hard, if evident of conflicting, unpleasant emotions.

 

“I am,” he promised. Then, after a moment, “I'm sorry about my state earlier. Sometimes this just happens.” He did not want to tell them the truth of things, that at moments in the past, when in the presence of a supposedly supernatural place, he sometimes lost his sense of direction and ability to focus and reason and even experienced a force inside of his own mind that might have been sentient. That seemed like a bad idea. It would only feed into her delusions, at best.  _ If I'm feeling the Blur here, doesn't that suggest that maybe something paranormal  _ is  _ happening here?  _ Maybe, he decided, but could just as easily be something inherent in him. This is definitely  _ not  _ Tanis. He was now so sure about that that nothing could convince him otherwise, right?  _ Aren't I,  _ he wondered as Max looked up at the sky as if to see how late in the day it was and then turned toward Chloe.  _ Then why am I still asking these same questions? _

 

“What's the plan?” Geoff asked the group at large. Chloe frowned, arms over her chest, at a cracked stone staircase which led up from the parking lot onto what must have been the school's campus.

 

“A quick, but careful tour of the campus,” Max finally said as she turned to follow Chloe's line of site. “Should do the trick. Then, I need to go to the bathroom.” Nic blinked at the woman's back and then realized that the quiet and sometimes ominous Max Caulfield had just made the first joke he had ever heard from her.  _ These two like their jokes.  _ Geoff gave a soft, if humoring 'hah' and Nic told them to lead the way. “We'll save the main building for last,” the woman added as she made for the stairs. It took Chloe a second to start to move behind her, but eventually the two of them fell in lockstep. Nic and Geoff followed. “Across the road there is the track and football field. There's not a ton of interest to us there, unless you like what's left of locker rooms. Personally, the place didn't appeal to me. I kind of regret that though.” Max's voice trailed off. That was when Nic realized that his right hand was completely empty. While the two women hooked arms and began to ascend the stairs, Nic jerked his recorder from his jacket pocket and hurried after them up the steps. When he looked back over his shoulder toward Geoff, the man looked back at him, somewhat grimly satisfied.  _ He was waiting to see if  _ I  _ could walk straight. _

“What do you regret?” Nic asked her, once the recorder had begun its work in his hands. He was only right behind Max and Chloe, and in fact had to slow down not to run into the back of them when Chloe glanced back over her shoulder and down at him. For some reason, he realized, this was the first time Chloe had shown him a genuine smile that looked to be  _ meant  _ for him. The inebriation might have factored into that, but Geoff had earned a smile or two without Chloe being particularly drunk. Nic was not going to read into it too much, especially considering how her features had darkened with annoyance only a half hour before, annoyance that had been meant for Nic and Nic alone.

 

“Max is actually a sporty kind of person,” Chloe told him. “She and her dad like to drag me to hockey games. Most of the time I leave it to them: a little father – daughter bonding thing, but sometimes I come with. I'm not gonna lie: watching a bunch of morons knock each other out for the sake of a game is therapy by proxy.” Nic laughed. Max shrugged as if to say it was no big deal, but as Chloe turned back to face forward, her eyes shined. It was a big deal to Chloe, at least, to be included in Max's time with her father.

 

“I guess I would have felt a little more at home at Blackwell if I'd gotten to go to some football games or something. I should have at least followed the Otters.” Nic tried to cover his confusion up by responding quickly, but as they reached the top of the stairs he was put off enough by this strange statement that he felt a quick jolt of panic when his foot fell farther than he expected it to. Embarrassed and hoping that Geoff was already paying attention to something, anything else, Nic hurried to speak.

 

“The otters?”

 

“The school's swimming team,” Chloe shot back, without looking back at him.

 

“I thought the mascot was the 'Bigfoot'?” Without much warning, Max turned, pulling Chloe with her left, down a path partially obscured from Nic's view by both junk and fairly tall grass. Nic turned to match and listened to the sound of Geoff's footfalls only a couple of feet behind him.

 

“That's just the football team. Blackwell was too good for only one mascot, Nic,” Chloe admonished him in a tone that made him imagine an exaggerated upper class individual turning their nose up at someone on the street. Before he could respond, Max's left hand rose, and she pointed out across the grounds toward a pile of brick, wood and other building supplies just down the path. Some work had been done to keep the route they were on clear during rescue attempts, because Nic could see this pile particularly well through the chaos ahead and around them. “That's the building the pool used to be in. Or I guess that  _ used  _ to be the building the pool used to be in.” A moment of quiet settled over the pair ahead as they continued toward the building. It was rather upsetting to consider what that pile of garbage a few feet away from them might have met to students, to coaching staff, to parents and alumni.  _ It's also the building that large party was in the night before the storm.  _ “You know, Max and I only saw each other again like, four days before the Storm.” Nic marked that information down mentally. He had not known that.

 

After such a long estrangement, five years by Max's reckoning,they had had four days together before such a traumatic event? _What kind of a relationship forms like that?_ Then again, Nic thought. He was not really one with any room to judge, when one considered his last relationship and his current romantic interests. Even so, how had these two women kept their own relationship together so long? Nic swallowed as he realized he had just thought about MK bluntly and openly in terms as someone he was romantically interested in. He wondered if she would actually bother to kick his ass for the faux pas or if she would have just mocked him mercilessly. Nic took that whole train of thought and filed it away for later consideration. At this rate, he was bound to let his own thoughts get in the way.

 

“We still found the time to break in one night and have a midnight swim. My stepdouche was the head of security here, but he was slow on the upchuck that night. I hate to say it but it was no contest. We got away with  _ all  _ kinds of shit before he caught on that we were on campus, like breaking into the principal's office, digging up files, that kind of thing.” The brunette patted the taller woman on the arm and shook her head.

 

“Not now, Chloe,” Max muttered. While Chloe shrugged and seemed content to change the subject, Nic was not so easily dissuaded.

 

“Probably the single coolest building on campus, anyway,” Chloe said.

 

“Digging up files?”

 

“You'll hear more about that, at least the basics of it, later,” Max assured him as the women began to slow.

 

“Can you give me any kind of hint beforehand?” Max sighed.

 

“Yeah,” she said. “We wanted to find some student files and we did - I'm just glad Chloe never saw my GPA.” As if it would make Nic forget what he had just heard, Max added this in a lighter tone. In a way, it was a fairly smart move, as the taller of the two women took charge of the conversation.

 

“Hey, that's right,” Chloe exclaimed indignantly, lurching forward a bit before turning on Max. “You saw  _ my  _ file, but I didn't get to see yours? How's that fair? I say we stop by and see if they left the filing cabinet laying around somewhere.”

 

“Chloe, those things aren't air tight. Everything in it must be mildewed and ruined by now.” Nic remained quiet, but noted that they had again slowed down while the two argued.

 

“You're no fun sometimes, Max Caulfield,” Chloe admonished her partner.

 

“I am too fun,” Max shot back, but there was no teasing, no playfulness. “That's why you love me.” Nic let the banter go on but quietly marked the rising tension in the brunette's voice.  _ Whose files were they interested in,  _ he wondered. Before he could try to push them again, they finally came to a stop. Some of the debris and junk, mostly the remains of the building to their right, thinned out only a few feet to the side of the path. Following Max's gaze, Nic turned to look through the gap. Not far at all away from them rested a pit full of wood, plaster and cinder block. It was, frankly,  _ huge,  _ so large in fact that it had to be a swimming pool, and a big one at that.  _ Well, they  _ did  _ have a swimming team.  _ “Back that way,” Max gestured over her left shoulder and along the path they still stood on, “was a building I never went into. Basically equipment sheds, anything that couldn't fit into one of the closests around the campus. I'm pretty sure only Samuel ever went back there.” Max's good mood looked and sounded to be fading. Nic leaned forward to catch a glimpse of her face and couldn't shake the dropping of his stomach at her frown. He tried to imagine the sight of this campus through her eyes but found he really could not. What he  _ could  _ do, though, was hear the lump in her throat. “I don't want to go there. Doesn't matter much to me, let's – do you, Chloe?”

 

“Rachel and I uh – Rachel and I snuck in there a few times, but I'd rather not talk or think about it.” Max gave a nod, turning back toward the main path. In the process Nic got a better view of the discomfort on both of their faces, as the women were still linked at the arms. He wondered if hearing Chloe talk about Rachel Amber, her alleged ex-girlfriend, upset Max. The woman spoke again as she and Chloe stepped around Nic and Geoff. Nic turned around to look at Geoff for the first time since coming onto campus and found the man staring blankly around, as if uninterested in what was happening.

 

“I know you want to get on with the story so you can decide if you're going to leave or whatever, Nic,” Max started, her words hitting too close to home, “but there's one more place on campus I need to see before we go into the school building.” Uncomfortable, Nic denied the accusation inherent in those words.

 

“What are you talking about?” Nic asked as he and Geoff started to follow both women. “I never said anything about us leaving.”

 

“Thing is,” Max said quietly into the cool winter's day. “You did.”

 

“No,” he insisted stubbornly, aware that he 'doth protest too much' but also certain he had not voiced any of those thoughts that he was suddenly feeling ashamed about out loud. Or if he had it had only been to Geoff, who would not have had time to tell the women without Nic hearing, even if he were the type to do so. “I didn't.” They paused on the sidewalk. Chloe did not turn to look at him, though Max did. It made Chloe seem a little robotic as she stood perfectly still save for turning her upper body slightly to let Max turn toward Nic. “I'm pretty sure I haven't said anything like that.”

 

“You'll understand, soon.” This sounded like a promise, however ominously. . “First, I need to see the dormitory. It's on the other side of campus and even leeching body warmth off of Chloe, I'm freezing my ass off, here.”

 

“Hey,” Chloe called again, sounded affronted once more. “I knew that's what you were up to? Why else would you want to get so close to me?” The woman's tone dropped slightly as she finally turned, leaning in toward Max and the two started off toward the main path again.

 

“Why indeed, ye saucy wench?” Nic glanced sideways at Geoff, who looked as bemused as Nic felt, though the taller man was also grinning, as if amused. Nic thought about continuing to push his argument, that he had said nothing about leaving, but he finally decided to drop it. He _hadn't_ said anything, but perhaps Max had been speaking metaphorically and it was only his unnatural, unnecessary guilt that was keeping him from seeing it. _Maybe something about my body language says I'm done listening? I hope not, I'll need to work on that if so._ At times, he had even thought he _was_ done listening but now that they were on campus he did not want to back out. There was, after all still time to make that decisions. After a few seconds on the main path, Nic slowed so that he could speak quietly to Geoff, outside of the range of the women's' hearing.

 

“What do you think that was all about?” he asked Geoff.

 

“Pirate kink?” the man deadpanned. Nic wanted to glare at him, to let him know he was unamused at this turn of the conversation, but it was difficult for him to hear the words 'pirate kink' and not be amused.

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

“I don't know,” Geoff shrugged. “Maybe she's a mind reader. Everyone else from this tiny town seems to be a superhero according to these two.”

 

“Look, if this gets sketchy - ”

 

“Gets?” Geoff interrupted, laughing genuinely. “Nic, we left sketchy behind us nine klicks back. We are now firmly in the land of 'what the fuck'.” Nic took the man's point, however colorfully made and slowly suppressed his earlier smile.

 

“If it gets  _ too  _ sketchy, I want you to use your judgment and decide when we get out of here. I haven't been myself today. “

 

“Buddy,” Geoff started, “that was  _ always  _ the plan.” Ahead, Chloe and Max had slowed significantly. Nic glanced back toward them and hurried up as Geoff smirked expectantly at him, waiting for Nic to argue back or something. Nic figured, though, that the women had noticed the distance between them and were waiting.

 

They weren't, though.

 

Staring at the main quad of campus, Max and Chloe had not  _ slowed down,  _ they had stopped altogether and were now gaping at the destruction around them in what looked like a very honest mixture of horror and grief. Nic looked about. Some sort of low, lumpy object, fairly large, stretched across the top of a low round structure in the center of it all that Nic thought must be a fountain. Here and there the land was dotted by downed trees. The edges of the cement paths were lined by brick, the remains of old desks, tables, chairs and books, refuse of literally any kind one might expect to find at a school. One upturned picnic table in surprisingly good shape rested only feet from the path the four were now standing on. Chloe shook her head slowly and, like Max, did not seem ready to tackle the main building.

 

“We can move on now,” the taller woman said, her voice as slow as the shaking of her head and as sad. “We can get a better look when we come back.” Nic took in main brick building, even so. As far as Blackwell itself went, more of this building stood than of any other on campus. Two of its corners were still upright, albeit shorter than they had once been if the photos he had back in his hotel room were any indication. The occasional stretch of wall still stood, going anywhere from a foot high to almost six feet. From what Nic could tell, some inner walls were still up as well, in various states of destruction but probably not many and the roof was entirely caved in. As they began to walk, Nic took in the debris nearest the path and realized he could spot a pattern. Bowed and twisted as they might be, the doors to what had once been lockers lined almost the entire length of the path. They were almost neatly lined, far too intentional to be weather or even random chance. Nic had to suppress the immediate thought that he wished to be anywhere but where he was when it struck him that he knew precisely what the locker doors were about.  _ They laid out the bodies here, before they took them off site.  _ It was the only thing that made sense: impromptu stretchers.

 

Only a couple of minutes had passed when the women in front of him released each others arms and went all at once from walking to jogging forward. He suspected some sort of emotional response was at work, but the stroll they had just been on through this heartbreaking scene was over. Nic glanced at Geoff, who shrugged and then jogged off after them. Nic followed, sighing. He did not feel exactly  _ great  _ even with the Blur out of his system. While he kept the recorder in his hand, he winced at the idea of listening to the air rushing past the device later, much less editing this clip if it made it in at all. The women passed over what looked to have once been some kind of gate or archway and then Max took a step or two away from Chloe, who slipped her hands into her pockets. Nic waited for something to happen, feeling as if he should not interrupt, and then winced as Max's hands rose, her hands pressing over her own mouth, much as Chloe had done in the graveyard. He thought this to be the same cause, too: Max was attempting to forcefully suppress her own grief. That idea passed pretty quickly as her body lurched forward and he heard her heaving and gagging. There was no stench, no sight especially worse than anything they had seen thus far; certainly not worse than those stretchers along the main path. Nic suspected the woman's nausea was emotionally induced.

 

Max took another step away, and while Chloe stared at the woman's back in visible frustration and concern, Max doubled over. For the next two minutes Nic tried to block out the sound of Max heaving long after she had thrown up anything that she had managed to choke down that morning for breakfast. A discussion that bordered on argument followed. The finer details were lost to Nic but he thought that Chloe was trying to convince her to leave. Instead of listening, Max rose to her full height and shot off toward the remains of yet another building, one a ways ahead that Nic had not paid much attention to. Nic, Geoff and Chloe were forced to hurry as quickly as they could, sidestepping a puddle which Nic did not want to pay much attention to.

 

There were about two or three stretches where a wall as high as Nic's waist stood, and Max aimed for a gap between two of these, nearly falling over what looked like part of some sort of scaffolding. He wondered if the building was being worked on when it was destroyed. This, Nic assumed by its position on campus, was the Prescott Dormitories. Nic pulled to a stop just inside the 'doorway' and watched as Max walked slowly up and down the length of the debris, stepping over doors, mattresses, bed frames, armoires and bureaus. She kicked aside debris from time to time as if looking for something. Behind Nic, Chloe spoke as if to him and him alone.

 

“You know, two of the students' bodies were never found.”

 

“I know,” Nic told the woman, turning, confused. “Wait, she's not  _ looking  _ for them, right?”

 

“It doesn't make sense, no. She wouldn't be able to find them if no one else could, right? But give her a minute to come to that herself.” Nic turned back to observe the woman throwing aside the busted frame of a futon and then something that looked like a printer. “She's never – she's never forgiven herself for this.” Chloe sounded emotional.

 

“Forgiven herself?” Nic asked, shaking his head in some confusion.” Chloe did not answer.  _ Survivor's guilt,  _ Nic thought, unable to completely prevent first Veronika's face and then Sam Reynold's from coming to mind.  _ Where are they?  _ Nic couldn't focus on that with all of this going on around him. It wouldn't be right to the people he was with and frankly it would not do much to help. There was nothing his waking mind could tell anyone about Veronika or Sam. 

 

Nic watched the way the woman dug through the trash. It was ultimately a futile, fruitless endeavor, but the look on her face was one of some desperation, as if a part of her truly thought that she might at least be able to find the bodies of the missing students. She so completely wanted to do this  _ small  _ thing, this thing which could not undo the storm they had experienced or all of the death and destruction in the town that Nic paused his recorder and stood, still and silent out of respect for this moment, however unreasonable it was. Nic had felt any number of times that he would do anything to be able to find Sam and Veronika and ensure that they were home safe.  _ He  _ had gotten out of there, after all. The least he could do was find some way to make sure that the others did the same. Nic shook his head as Max apparently hurt herself on a piece of garbage but, after looking down at it, decided it must not have been a big deal and returned to digging through the area almost without aim. A couple of minutes passed like this before Max began to slow further and then finally, with something in her hands, returned to their side. Nic turned the recorder back on again and leaned forward slightly, blinking as Max raised the neck of a guitar up in her left hand. Max examined it dispassionately for a second before hurling it away in a fit of what looked like rage.

 

“I never got good enough for it to matter, anyway,” she declared.  _ That was hers?  _ “And fuck you.” For a second, Nic thought she was talking to him since he was the closest of the four to her, but the woman took one or two steps forward and kicked something among the debris which rose up just briefly and fell back to the ground. Nic thought he recognized it as one of those small quadcopter drones.  _ Or I guess, it used to be one.  _ One of its rotors was missing completely and the frame looked crumpled. “Well,” the woman insisted in a brand new voice, at least as far as Nic was concerned. “I'm fucking here, let's do this.” A bitter, almost angry Max Caulfield turned and marched past Nic and Geoff, to Chloe. It was not like in the junkyard, the kind of anger he had had to contend with from Chloe. Max's anger seemed to be focused on everything around her, but it was not the dominating emotion within the brunette, clearly. As they passed outside of what was left of the dormitories, Max several feet ahead of them, the woman's right fist rose to press against her lips and she again, audibly gagged. It was an upsetting and kind of disgusting sound, a deep, wet retching, but Nic recognized a physiological response to emotion when he saw it.

 

_ They're not lying,  _ Nic told himself as Chloe approached to take Max's other hand and was waved off with an apology.  _ They believe everything they're saying. This is real to them. _

 

“I'm sorry,” the brunette gasped. “I need some air, some space so I can get over this or else I won't be telling anyone anything.” Signs of the stress of her heaving were becoming more and more obvious the farther they walked toward the school building. By the time they reached the front of the building, Nic was seriously considering calling it for the day on the grounds of worry for her health: Max's breath came ragged and quick, her face was dark red. Similar worries passed over Chloe's face as she stuck a few feet from the shorter woman, as if trying to be close to her while respecting distance. They paused by the fountain so that Max could take slow, deep breaths with her eyes clenched so tightly it probably hurt.

 

Most of the grounds even this close to the building was still covered in pinboards, chairs and student desks. Chloe stopped beside the long, dark statue on its back, laying across the remnants of the fountain a few feet from the front doors. Its left arm had cracked off and rested a short ways away. Chloe knelt beside it, so Nic turned to look at her.

 

“I never understood a word he said, but I helped him drink his wine,” she told Nic, the left side of her mouth quirking upward. Nic wondered who the statue was of that Chloe might have known enough to drink with as a kid. While Max continued her breathing exercises, Nic strolled to the bottom of the other side of the statue, and knelt to read the nameplate aloud.

 

“Jeremiah Blackwell,” he muttered as he looked for the date on the plate. Nic shook his head. The nameplate suggested, in small text along the bottom, that it was honoring the founder of the school. There was no way the man depicted here could have been in drinking condition even if by some magic he had lived to be old enough to ever see Chloe Price. Jeremiah Blackwell had founded the school in – Nic groaned, loudly.  _ Son of a bitch.  _ Turning toward Chloe, who was smiling at him innocently, he hissed, “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog,  _ really?”  _ The soft, sad shrug was not satisfying. Chloe turned away to approach Max, who seemed to have calmed. Nic shook his head at her retreating form. When Nic looked for Geoff, he was passing the bluenette a thumbs up as if he thought the joke was tops.

 

Max straightened up, looking serious and began to take fairly long strides toward the building. Nic and Geoff had to hurry, same as Chloe, to keep up. All in all, they had done fairly well at dodging what was left of Blackwell Academy, stretched across the grounds that day and had even avoided trouble at the junkyard. It really had only been a matter of time before their preternaturally good luck ran dry. Nic was just behind Chloe in taking the shattered stone steps up to the building, following Max, when Geoff grunted. Nic paused and turned back to see the man righting himself after having tripped not on the steps but something else. In a strange imitation of Max only a few minutes before, Geoff reared back his right leg and kicked a dark letter 'B' the size of Nic's forearm. It skittered a few inches but had clearly been heavier and more solid than the man expected, because he grunted again, wincing.

 

“Look,” Chloe exclaimed. Nic turned back to find that the bluenette had paused to check on Geoff as well. Max froze at the top of the steps and turned back, looking edgy, jumpy even. Chloe pointed past Nic toward the object Geoff had just kicked and the man knelt down in response to the gesture. Nic watched Geoff's normally relaxed brow furrow in confusion, before he tilted his head up not at Nic but at Chloe. Nic stepped back down the staircase toward Geoff.

 

“What's going on?” Max asked, sounding simultaneously irritated and anguished. This was not a good time for any delays, Nic understood, but something had bothered Geoff and Chloe both.

 

“More graffiti,” Chloe said, and Nic blinked down at the sign letter resting at Geoff's feet. “I think it's the same joker from the junkyard.

 

“The Warrior,” Geoff read, gesturing to the bright blue graffiti with his right hand. Chloe shook her head and then turned to ascend the stairs. Nic and Geoff shared a look while the man rose and behind Nic, Max clicked her tongue. He assumed she was ready to go, but he also wondered if Geoff was thinking what he was thinking, that maybe Chloe and Max had come earlier than they let on and planted all of this. What upset Nic the most was that 'warrior' was not a bad description for someone who had once been in the military.  _ And how would Max and Chloe have made sure that Geoff was going to trip over that particular piece of trash? We could've all busted our heads open or broken our necks a hundred times today, on all kinds of things.  _ Nic remembered the sound of Veronika's voice in his head.  _ 'You are the Novelist. You are the Zealot. You are the Witness – and I am the Runner.  _ Nic shook his head and turned away from Geoff to follow the women up and 'into' Blackwell, as well as one could enter a building that no longer had a roof or most of its walls. As Nic hit the top step, he felt a weight lift from his neck, the last bit of tension leave it and everything both looked and sounded a little more  _ real _ and  _ immediate _ . The last of the Blur had faded from his mind without him even noticing that it was still there.  _ That's disturbing.  _ Of course, it was not the only thing disturbing about this situation, if Nic thought about it.

 

A shoe, old and waterlogged, rested near the 'doors' of the building. A mass of wet paper that must have once been part of a book, an upturned and intact desk, an old television, they all waited only about twenty feet away. Someone's jacket or sweater was hooked overtop half of a door which had been leaned up against a wall about two feet high. Max led them into the building and Nic kept his recorder extended in front of him as he walked. Her voice sounded clearer than ever to him when she finally spoke. Nic carefully picked his way through the trash so that he did not fall and slow them down even further, because Max was not slowing down.

 

“Over to our right was the principal's office.” Her voice still sounded laced with anguish, but she was clearly trying to mask it. Nic did not dissuade her of doing what comforted her in the moment. A few feet farther in, he saw what was left of an old, busted trophy case down on its side. Judging by the ruined walls around them he had an inkling that they were at a point where four hallways had once met. Most of those walls were inches high. Max continued past this central point, a little further, to a stretch of wall almost as tall as her shoulder. She made for a gap in it that looked about the right size for a door and Nic saw that the debris in there had changed. The floor was completely covered throughout most of the school and this room was no different. He watched Max pause just inside the 'doorway' and stare down at a backpack sitting oddly perfectly among the remains around them, but neither of them said anything about it. No one spoke.

 

Perhaps it was because he was finally free of the Blur again, but Nic realized then that save for the sounds of their trek across the junk, their voices and breath, the grounds of Blackwell Academy were dead silent.

 


	8. The Telling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought you'd get no more chapters out of me before con, but I was wrong! So, here's an EARLY one.

Disclaimer: I own the rights to more or less nothing seen here, nothing from Life is Strange or the Public Radio Alliance or Pacific Northwest Stories. This is entirely a fanbased work for personal enjoyment. 

* * *

 

#  Chapter Eight: The Telling

 

Nic watched the woman continue to stare down at the backpack at her feet, after the implication that it was finally time for him – for his listeners to get the rest of the story, he was eager to get on with it. Nic's eyes trailed frustratedly from her to the pack. It was clearly more or less empty, filthy and ruined, but the woman in front of him acted as if it held some special significance to her.  _ Does it remind her of being at school there? Is she thinking about her classmates? About her friends?  _ Nic waited as patiently as he could, but when his eyes shot to Chloe, her arms were crossed over her chest and the look on  _ her  _ face was pain. He was no longer so worried that he and Geoff were being played and even his already thin insistence that the two women must have been delusional had begun to fade. This, however, was stretching things a bit. In this moment of nothing which might have been everything to the brunette in front of him, the cooling winter's day paired with the preternatural quiet of the ruined school building and together they threatened to drive  _ him  _ to drink.

 

All at once, the short brunette in the dark grey jacket shook her head once, wiped a lock of hair behind her ear and stepped back from the bag. The wall nearest to her stood tall enough for her to lean against it, though to Nic's eyes it looked like it was made almost entirely of cinder block, loose and ready to crumble. The woman stepped over the shattered tank of a toilet and leaned her left shoulder against this wall. It did not budge. Nic exhaled, unsure when he had taken the breath, but glad there were no surprise injuries to deal with. As soon as Max settled on where to stand, it must have been some kind of cue to Chloe, because the taller woman popped her knuckles and made to approach Max. Again, much as she had done outside the school, Max Caulfield waved her girlfriend off. Strangely enough, instead of hurt, he thought he saw frustration cross the bluenette's features once more. After just enough seconds more that he was considering asking Max if she would rather leave instead, Nic matched eyes with Geoff. At once, the photography student began to speak.

 

“I grew up in Arcadia Bay from the time I was a toddler until I was twelve.”  _ So, another 'my life's story' thing,  _ Nic thought, glancing at the punk-looking woman to Geoff's left, whose face was smoothing out, calming into unbefitting neutrality. “What I remember most about those days wasn't school. It was the summers. It was going every night for a week to the little, shitty county fair outside of the city and blowing absurd amounts of our allowances playing everything from ring toss, to darts, to that stupid 'fill the balloon with this water pistol' game. I remember hot summer evenings, as the sun disappeared just below the horizon, my arm aching as Chloe pulled me behind her, running around trying to get on all the rides, even the ones we were too small for. I had my  _ best friend _ with me. As long as it was me and her, none of those rides scared me.” The most absurd – and, coincidentally the most honest – unadulterated smile he had seen her give began to form. It was an interesting transformation: while not as pale as her girlfriend, the shorter woman was still firmly what would be called pasty so watching the color ease into her face as she spoke, experiencing what looked like genuine excitement, was hard not to take note of.

 

“She would laugh at me if I was scared, anyway, and tell me that everything was going to be alright because she was with  _ me,  _ Supermax.” Beside Geoff, Chloe was finally, smiling back. Yet, in ways, the pair of them still looked sad and regretful. “I remember running around in the woods every weekend in eyepatches and pirate hats we won from the fair when we were eight. I remember our families getting together to cook out in Chloe's back yard. I remember when I was eleven and Chloe was thirteen and we snuck her parents' wine and then, like a dumbass, I spilled it. I remember every warm night, every sleepover, every adventure on the seven seas of Arcadia Bay. Then I remember it going away.” Her voice grew grave and Nic took the changing atmosphere as a reminder that these emotions the women were expressing were utterly genuine. The dirt across one of her still slightly rosy cheeks was interrupted, marred by a genuine tear which found its way down her face when she blinked. “And I know what you're thinking, 'you're not the first person to have to move away from their home, their friends, get over it!'” Nic had not thought anything of the sort. He had begun to comprehend the depth of their connection when they were younger as a result of Chloe's story in the junkyard.

 

“See, mom had found a better job in Seattle and dad was tired of working on cars and bouncing from whatever factory was hiring to whatever factory would take him after the fresh round of layoffs came for him. I remember my best friend being heartbroken because her father was killed and then, the very  _ day  _ of his funeral, I had to watch her, dressed in black, crying by his grave as she got tinier and tinier out of the rear window of my parents' car. You're right. I'm not the first and maybe it wouldn't mess with me if I had handled it better. See, I remember barely fitting in in Seattle and I remember how  _ guilty  _ I felt when Chloe and I stopped talking as much. Eventually, I felt like a horrible person she wouldn't want to hear from again, anyway. I hated Seattle for a year or two, and then I found a couple friends who made me hate it a little less, but that didn't change a ton. A few days before I turned eighteen, five years after I had left, I came back to Arcadia Bay to go to Blackwell. I wanted to call Chloe, but part of me said she wouldn't want to hear from me, so I didn't. “ At the very least, Max's story was progressing more quickly than Chloe's had. Or at least, he  _ thought  _ so, but there was a difference. For all that Chloe had gone dull and a little numb, if angry, for most of her retelling the woman in front of him, with the camera bag across her shoulders and the dark blue eyes, the pale lips, she was not dull or numb. She spoke with a sort of nostalgic sadness befitting old novels. He hated the idea, but a part of his brain wondered if she didn't have a bit in common, emotionally, with the fictional Holden Caulfield. The woman shook her head when she realized she and Nic had locked eyes, robbing him of trying to look any deeper into them and pick out whether or not he should trust her.

 

“I went to classes and I sat up in my room. I drank tea with a girl down the hall named Kate Marsh, because she was the only one who was quiet and shy like I was and she didn't expect too much of me. We talked about books. I wheedled her into showing me all of her art, because it was so bright, so cheery and I needed that and besides, it was  _ good  _ and she needed to know it was good. Warren started talking to me that first week and never went away. Since then, I've had to confront some things, things I'd never realized about both of them. They were imperfect people and maybe even - maybe even bad for me in ways, but they were also kind to me. I didn't make any other friends, really. A couple of people tried to reach out, but more didn't. A couple started to treat me like crap. The rest just went on with their lives and left me alone. I played the wallflower until early October, not long at all after I turned eighteen. Because that's when my part of the story really starts.”

 

Max lifted her head again and this time offered him the eye contact. Awkwardly, Nic accepted. For just a moment, he stared across a ruined bathroom not at Max Caulfield, but at Veronika Pilman. Then he blinked, inhaled and Max was where she was supposed to be.  _ You've got them on your mind. _ Nic looked left in response to movement from the corner of his eye. To his trepidation, Chloe had fished from her pocket what looked to be the last of the beers she had procured from the cooler in the back of Geoff's truck.  _ Is she going to –  _ Nic was dissuaded of the notion that Chloe was going to try to do some 'buzz maintenance' as Geoff would have put it, when the bluenette reached it out and locked eyes with Max. The brunette held out a hand in request and Chloe approached, taking that hand in her right.

 

“By this point,” Max continued as she tried to smile at her girlfriend and instead grimaced, visibly squeezing the woman's hand tightly in response, “I felt alone. I thought I might be starting to really hate myself. I  _ thought  _ I was. I didn't know what that actually meant back then. I do now. I know what it feels like. I don't think I've entirely stopped hating myself since Arcadia Bay died. Nic, you and Geoff didn't believe much of what Chloe had to say earlier but, honestly that was not – well, it was tame.  _ This _ is where the story gets hard to believe.  _ This _ is where it gets strange.” There it was, the reminder that they were both well aware that Nic and Geoff shared a serious amount of doubt about their story. Nic grimaced, himself and tried to consider the best way to answer. His left hand slid into his long jacket's pocket as much to have something to do as for any warmth it might provide and he settled on words.

 

“I'm going to listen, if you're going to tell me,” Nic promised. “This is – you tried to tell me I wouldn't believe you back in Seattle, but we're all still here. So, please, if you're alright with it, I'd like to know.”

 

“Absolutely,” Geoff echoed. “After all, we're here, at your old high school.” At this, Max looked away from he and Geoff, first at her girlfriend who stood calmly by Max's side and then at the ruined building around them all.

 

“Yeah,” she said, sighing, “yeah, we are.” The brunette's free hand reached across her body and took the proffered drink from Chloe. It was a little amusing, if a little sad to see them work together to pop the top without breaking the grasp their other hands held on one another. Max, as Nic had discovered the night before, was not particularly adept at 'chugging' a drink particularly quickly, at least in comparison to her significant other. That did not stop the woman from trying. He thought it was ultimately a wasteful endeavor: a single weak beer was not likely to have any notable effect on her.  _ Then again, she is probably running on an empty stomach now,  _ Nic thought, recalling her earlier difficulties keeping the contents of her breakfast down.

 

“That's the spirit, Caulfield,” Chloe cheered, in a slower, sadder voice than likely intended. “I've finally done it. I've finally gotten you to drink in school.” Nic snorted. After a second or two more the empty beer can sailed past Nic, toward the front of the school. Toward, he thought, the area Max had designated as the principal's office.

 

“You're the best bad influence a girl can have,” Max assured the woman, squeezing her hand.

 

“Don't you ever forget it.”

 

“I won't,” the shorter woman told the taller. “I promise.” When the two women broke their grasp on one another, and Chloe readjusted herself so that she wasn't standing with a leg on either side of the busted toilet nearest Max, Nic watched the body language the two gave off toward one another, the signals of amusement, desire and he wondered, not for the first time, how love forms. Chloe planted herself atop what remained of a sink, which only made her look even taller than she usually did in comparison to her partner. “I remember the date,” Max declared, jerking Nic from his more abstract thought process to continue her story. “It's kind of burned into my head, you know? October 7 th , normal monday, I was sitting in photography class, taking notes, being nervous as all get out about turning in a photo for a contest that our teacher, Mr. Jefferson, wanted all of us photography students to enter. I was just taking notes and listening to his voice and then, all at once I wasn't. I wasn't in the classroom. All at once, I was on the ground, in the middle of a nasty downpour. I didn't recognize where I was at first: it was raining too hard and the wind was strong – but not quite as strong as it  _ would  _ be. The storm,  _ the  _ Storm, wasn't as scary this time.”

 

“This time?” Nic asked, blinking. Max did not answer.

 

“After a few seconds, I recognized the place as a trail around here. It led up to the lighthouse you probably spotted as you came in, up on the cliff. Somehow, I had this thought in my head: if I get to the lighthouse, I’ll be safe. So I went. There was trash and things everywhere and all I could hear was wind and thunder and the sound of breaking tree limbs - I thought something bad was going to happen to me but instead I got up to the top of the hill. Then I got distracted from all that noise: there was a  _ huge _ tornado coming in from the water toward the town. It looked wider than the town itself was and at that point, all I knew for sure was that Arcadia Bay was in trouble.” Nic glanced sideways at Geoff, who shrugged. When he looked back, Max shrugged at him, too, as if to say that she had tried to warn them. “Something caught my eye, something flipping about in the winds which had just gotten strong enough to almost blow me over. It was an old fishing boat just spinning through the air. While I watched it it flew right into the lighthouse and brought the very top of it down, right on top of me.” Clearly, by the way the woman spoke quicker and quicker as the narration went on, there was adrenaline pumping through her veins: the story meant something very important to her, at least.

 

“At that point, I opened my eyes in my photography classroom.”

 

“So, you were dreaming?” he asked her.

 

“At first, I thought so too,” Max answered, “but now I don’t know if I was having a vision or if I was actually there.”

 

“How could you be actually there?” Nic queried, confused. Somewhere along the line he had missed something, misheard her, lost the thread of the conversation.

 

“How could I be having a vision?” Max deadpanned back, as if she thought she had caught him in something other than confusion. Nic wasn't sure what that was supposed to be. From a step or two away from Max, Chloe laughed once, and clapped. It was – or at least it seemed - out of character for her. Nic decided to chalk it up to the inebriation, which otherwise looked to be wearing off. “Things were normal for a class, if kind of shitty. The girl to my left, Victoria, her phone went off, buzzing on the table. Her friend Taylor threw a piece of paper across the room and hit Kate in the face. I did what I always did when I was stressing out. I took a photo.” That made sense. Artists channeled their emotions into their work all of the time and sometimes they simply created their art for the  _ sake  _ of those emotions, or for the sake of exercising them. “This just happened to be one of many- “ the woman quietly trailed off and then continued, as if a little embarrassed, “ _ many _ selfies. Jefferson called me out for it and then started asking us about how portraiture got its start, about something called the Daguerreian Process which let it become more common and affordable for people. I didn’t know the answer, but Victoria did. After that, the bell rang and I decided to just shake this all off. I dodged turning in a photo for the contest, so Jefferson quoted fucking John Lennon at me and then let me go.”

 

“John Lennon?” Nic prompted, unable to stop himself from perking up a bit. He had always been a bit of a fan.

 

“'Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans',” Max intoned. Her voice was not in mimicry of John Lennon's, clearly, so he wondered if she was not mocking Mark Jefferson. “It was his way of telling me to get a move on, I guess. Anyway, I went to the girl's room while everyone else fooled around in the halls.” Nic glanced about. Was that why they had come out to the school? So that they could be in  _ this  _ room? “I did what everyone does in the bathroom, I guess. I washed my face, had a little breakdown and destroyed my picture for the contest because I wasn't confident in anything about myself. Then, I kind of got distracted. Some kind of butterfly flew in through the open window.” Again, Nic thought that at some point, Max had said something to make this statement make some kind of sense, but he had not heard it.

 

“Butterfly?” He didn't  _ mean  _ to sound incredulous, but what the hell did a butterfly have to do with a storm that could wipe out an entire town.

 

“Yeah, but it was like nothing I'd ever seen before, or since. It was bright blue, almost glowing, itself. Well, obviously when it landed on something behind the stalls,” the brunette jerked her head toward the farthest corner of what must have been the bathroom in question, “I pulled out my camera, went back there and took a photo. That's when the door to the girl's bathroom opened and Nathan Prescott walked in. I hid.”

 

“Nathan Prescott,” Nic mused. That was a name he knew. Not only did - or had – the Prescotts had a building on campus named after them, Nathan Prescott's body had been reportedly found in a shallow grave with Rachel Amber's shortly before the town was destroyed. “What was he doing in there?” Nic motioned for her to go on.

 

“I mean, at first, nothing. He just stood there talking to himself. I could hear it. He was ranting about how he was the boss, how he  _ ran  _ the school and could probably get away with blowing it up if he wanted to.”

 

“Kind of dark stuff,” Nic said.

 

“I thought so too. So I stayed hidden, waiting for him to realize he was in the wrong bathroom or something and leave. Then the door opened and  _ someone else  _ came in. She started checking the stalls one at a time, and I listened to them for a few seconds. The other person was a girl who sounded like she was trying to shake Nathan down for money.” Despite himself, he turned his head slightly and locked eyes with Chloe, who shrugged and waved her hands as if to say, 'you know this part, already'. “Yeah, you guessed it,” Max confirmed. “I peeked around the corner and... I didn't recognize her. She'd changed  _ a  _ lot. She hadn't been this bright blue haired hellraiser punk-lite quasi-grunge thing you see before you.”

 

“You're one to talk, you twenty-teen hippie,” Chloe shot back. Max shrugged as if the words meant very little to her and Nic was fairly certain they did. This kind of banter seemed second nature for the women in front of him. In fact, Max continued speaking, more quickly than before, as if Chloe had never interrupted her.

 

“She pushed Nathan's buttons  _ hard,  _ because that is what Chloe does best. She pushes buttons. She is great at it, she is legendary at it. Never doubt her on that. Unfortunately, she pushed the wrong ones. She brought up Nathan's family and he decided that meant that he could pull a gun on her. And-” an unfortunate squelching noise sounded from the back of the woman's throat, as if it had just closed on her mid sentence, then Max inhaled deeply, cleared her throat loudly and continued, “and then I stood there and watched as Nathan backed her up against a wall and shot her in the chest. Chloe died instantly.” Nic furrowed his brow as the words registered, and looked around to see if anyone else was as confused as he was. Geoff's right eyebrow quirked. “My best friend from the time I could walk died in a bathroom and I didn't even recognize her.”

 

“What do you mean?” he asked, looking away from Geoff to the blatantly emotional brunette as she returned to leaning against the wall, her arms crossing over her chest as best as they could with the strap of her bag pulling on her shoulder. “She's obviously – obviously alive.” He wanted to add that she was right here, in front of them, but that seemed absurd. He had stated the obvious enough by pointing out that she still drew breath. Instead of answering, the brunette continued her story, though Nic thought she sounded disturbed. By that, he did not mean that she sounded upset, either.

 

“I wanted nothing more than to stop this, to go back to before this happened, to not see this. I jumped out of my hiding spot. Nathan was freaking out so bad I don't think he even saw me. I reached out for Chloe even though she was so far away. All I could  _ think  _ was that I had to stop this from happening. As I reached out, my hand pressed up against something in the air, something I couldn't see but I could feel, cool and slippery. I closed my hand around it and I blinked and – suddenly I wasn't in the bathroom anymore. I was sitting in my photography class, listening to Mark Jefferson go  _ on  _ and  _ on  _ about photography capturing emotion.” Nic felt his own stomach drop out. If she was saying what he  _ thought  _ she was saying, if she  _ wasn't  _ talking about bad dreams leading up to the storm, then that was just another weight on the scale which made it harder to balance her story and reality. It was an unpleasant reminder that the women before him could also be genuinely mentally unstable. He felt a little conflicted as the words processed. “That look on your face? I felt it, too, at first. I didn't believe this could happen. The problem is that after a few seconds, Victoria's phone buzzed on her desk and then Taylor threw a crumpled up piece of paper at Kate and hit her in the face while Jefferson’s back was turned. So I did what I had to do: I tested to see whether I was insane or not. I took a selfie. Jefferson called me out on it and then went on to talk about the Daguerreian Process. All over again.”

 

“Are you trying to tell us that you think you traveled back in time?” The brunette fixed serious eyes on him, eyes laced with anger not unlike her significant other's. The doubt in his voice, in his question, had obviously struck a nerve. This was not a response he had expected from her.

 

“No, Nic. I k _ now  _ I traveled back in time. There's no  _ think _ about it, no matter  _ what  _ the doctors say. I was pretty sure even  _ right then  _ in the classroom, when everything played out the same. This time, when the bell rang,  _ I _ quoted John Lennon at  _ Jefferson  _ and then ran like hell for the bathroom. I did  _ everything  _ the same: washed my face, tore up my photo and dropped it on the ground and I waited and watched. The butterfly came in, so I followed it, knelt down and took a photo before it flew off to other parts of the room. Nathan came in, Chloe came in after him and this time, listening to them struggle with the gun and Nathan’s crazy babbling, I realized I could do something about it. Like, I  _ knew  _ I could.” Nic shook his head. This story was going to go even further down the rabbit hole. He didn't need to be a mind reader to know that. “The gun went off and I reached out and focused. I focused on turning back time, just a few seconds. The colors drained out of the room, and I heard and felt things in reverse: their voices, my own breath. Then, all at once, we were back to normal. Chloe and Nathan were arguing again. I had to stop it. I ended up setting off the fire alarm before he could shoot her.”

 

From there, as Nic stood and listened, listened to her voice and his own breathing, almost the only sounds in the world, the story slowed down. Max went on to tell them about talking to the principal who dismissed her concerns about Nathan in the girl's bathroom with a gun, forcing her to apparently rewind time again and tell a different story. She told them about the security head, a man named David Madsen who grilled and insulted her. In comparison to what she had already said, the idea of the school's security department being headed up by an asshole was not too ridiculous. He had looked briefly into the staff of the school, but he had only found anything of interest in relation to two names on that list: Mark Jefferson and Samuel Taylor. The first had been a photographer of some note out of Seattle who had been born in Arcadia Bay, who had been arrested a few hours before the tornado on suspicion of murder and kidnapping according to records MK had been able to track down. The second had been the school's groundskeeper and janitor and he was interesting mostly because his body had never been found.

 

“A few minutes later I met my friend Warren in the parking lot. I was about to tell him what was happening to me, what I'd seen and done when Nathan comes marching across the parking lot. Apparently, he'd recognized me from the torn photograph on the bathroom floor and figured out that it was me who pulled the fire alarm. He made a few threats but it didn't really phase me – until he grabbed me by the neck. Warren pushed him off of me.” Nic tried to shut the doubting part of his brain down, or at least put it on the backburner and pay close attention. He was not sure how much of Chloe's story he had properly heard. Listening to Max's seemed only right. “At this point this ugly, filthy tan truck that sounded like it was going to die or kill it's driver and m-”

 

“You’re going to have to apologize to him when we get home!” Chloe Price's exclamation of offense was unacknowledged by her girlfriend.  _ Protective of her truck? _

 

“-me comes barreling up to me. Barely stops in time not to run me over. I can see through the windshield because I'm half on the hood and behind the wheel is the girl with the bright blue hair and beanie who I had just stopped from getting shot. I'm looking at her, she's looking at me and then we recognize each other at the same time. Even panicking, even with Nathan on top of Warren throwing a punch while he yelled for me to run, hearing Chloe say my name was like waking up out of a shitty, shitty dream. Warren was telling me to run, Chloe yelled for me to get in. I got in. We sped right out of the parking lot and weirdly, the truck didn't kill us.” The left side of the woman's mouth curled up into a smirk. Chloe turned, looking expectantly at Max, as if waiting for some praise. Nic assumed that was just part of their shtick with one another.

 

“And that's how you two reunited?” Nic asked, at least wrapped up in the story enough to finally set aside his concerns again for the moment.

 

“That's how,” Max confirmed and shrugged as best as one could with neither hand nor shoulder exactly free. “It was pretty clear Chloe was livid with me for not talking to her for so long or being back a month without saying anything. Or both. It showed in everything she did or said to me but she still welcomed me back. She still took me to her house where we’d spent all that time as kids. And maybe my camera was broken because Nathan had made me drop my bag and my friend was taking a beating for me back at school but I was home for the first time since I moved away. No matter how much tension there was between us, I was so fucking relieved. But I brought you guys out here so you could understand this place, the same way Chloe brought you to the junkyard. This is where it started. This is where  _ everything  _ started.”

 

“What do you mean?” he asked her, sure she was making some sort of point about their relationship. She didn't answer at first, instead she pushed off from the wall and with a steadying hand from Chloe as her support, she climbed out of the corner and took two huge steps forward, until she was practically right in Nic's face. He was forced to step back for a multitude of reasons.  _ What is she doing? _

 

“Nic,” Max started, as if making sure to signify that this statement was important. The woman's eyes matched his once more and he got the feeling that it took great effort for her to do so, because as soon as she got the sentence out she looked down again. “This is where the storm started, right in  _ this _ spot.” The woman pointed down at her feet, at the stretch of trash that he had just been standing on, that she was now standing on having supplanted him. That was not only nonsense, a storm starting in a building, but it was also inconsistent with the facts.

 

“I thought the storm started over the water. The radar pictures certainly suggest so.” After a moment, the woman sighed and averted her eyes entirely, turning around and resuming her post beside the stretch of ruined wall. Judging by the exasperation in that sigh, Nic had just said something stupid. In fact, the sad shake of Max's head made him feel as if he had just said something to MK that she found hard to even  _ respond  _ to and was being patronized for it. For a second, he thought she might do him the basic  _ fucking  _ favor of explaining, because he felt like either he was being silly as hell or she was, but instead the woman shrugged, leaned against the shoulder high wall segment and continued.

 

“It turns out that my camera was hella messed up from the fight with Nathan, so I was kind of devastated but my heart was beating really fast and I was in a truck with Chloe. I felt alive in a way I hadn't in a while. I also felt  _ really  _ nostalgic when we got back to her house. We had had a lot of good times there.” Nic tried to let his embarrassment go, much as he did when MK felt the need to 'roast' him during particularly bad screw-ups, but MK was MK and this woman in front of him was not.  _ A little courtesy wouldn't hurt.  _ “Chloe told me everything about Rachel that night, everything she knew at least: when she went missing, how they had always planned to leave town together. I decided to try to fix my camera so I went down into the garage and that's when I learned that David Madsen, the head of security at Blackwell, was Chloe's stepfather.” Nic turned his gaze on Chloe, who was more interested in moving closer to Max. This time, the woman took Chloe's hand again and pulled her close to her side. “Wowzers, he was a piece of work.”  _ Wowzers? _

 

“He had a big, lit up gun case which was missing a revolver, a monitor in a cabinet in the garage hooked up to cameras all over the inside of the house, in peoples' rooms even. He wanted to do something of the sort at blackwell. David was complex, but he was ultimately not important until later. He played a big part in Kate's suicide attempt and spent the rest of his time kind of blundering around, getting very little right until he finally listened to SOMEONE else later on.” Again, Nic looked for any kind of reaction on Chloe's face to hearing her stepfather talked about. He was beginning to get the idea, though, that there was some serious dislike at play, not just on Chloe's part but on Max's. “Well, my camera was a bust but Chloe had one around that used to belong to her dad and so I was really touched when she gave it to me and I guess while I was distracted, she spotted my photo of the butterfly. She'd seen it in the bathroom, too.”

 

“How did you feel when you realized she'd been in there?” Geoff asked. Nic had been about to ask the same thing, but Geoff had beaten him to the punch. It was a good question, though, so he could hardly feel slighted. At odds with her silence about her stepfather, this question earned an immediate response from the punk.

 

“I actually felt  _ really  _ exposed at first, to be honest with you,” the woman admitted. Nic got that. Whatever the circumstances which had brought her there, Chloe had been through something traumatic that day only to learn that someone else had seen it. “Then I realized that the only reason I was probably breathing even was that Max had to have pulled the alarm. Even before she told me I knew that was what had happened: it made this weird, twisted kind of sense that Max would have swooped in and saved my ass that day of all days. I thought she owed  _ me  _ one, but I had no clue – I didn't even want to think about almost dying.”  _ So, she certainly believes Max, one-hundred percent. I wouldn't be surprised.  _ “So as pissed as I was at Max, this girl had come outta nowhere like some hella ninja savior and saved my extra crispy bacon. I kinda figured out that was why Nathan was up in Max's face. Once I got Max to confess that she didn't recognize me on site, because I was a petty little shithead, I asked her to give me the picture. Good luck charm, memory of the first time Mad Max saved my ass - whatever you wanna call it, I held on tight to it. Our cool bonding moment got interrupted when my step douche came home, found a joint in the room and decided the right way to answer me not getting on bended knee and licking his ho- his boots, was to slap me.”  _ So, no love lost,  _ Nic thought, his earlier suspicions confirmed. It was hard to imagine this woman letting anyone assault her, though. He didn't disbelieve her, but he couldn't help but wonder if she eventually got revenge.

 

Nic swiveled his head around for the first time in several minutes as a natural pause came over the group, eyes trailing, thoughts gathering. Part of what had once been the door to a bathroom stall was kind of creaking back and forth as Chloe's foot moved across it, but again there was otherwise an unnatural, eerie silence. As cold as he felt, there was also no wind. Nic didn't care for that. Sometimes, the deep woods of the Calm had been equally quiet when the animals had stopped calling and the wind had grown eerily silent.  _ This isn't the Calm,  _ Nic insisted.  _ The Blur is quiet and, besides, you're in a city.  _ Unfortunately, that led to him asking a fair question of himself: was it still a city if no one lived there and there were no buildings left intact? Was it still a city without a government or a community? Nic didn't think so.  _ Doesn't mean it's wilderness either.  _ The grounds of Blackwell Academy didn't strike him as wilderness. Brick, milled wood, various items produced and consumed by human beings littered the uncut grass. That was not wilderness.

 

_ Does this count as urban decay? _

 

“Just - understand,” Max started, apparently deciding she was ready to go on, “no matter what Chloe tried to say earlier, she didn't have 'no reason' to be pissed. Life had been shitty –  _ I  _ had been shitty and being pissed was how she handled it. Right or wrong, that doesn't make her a bad person.” Judging by the awkward way Chloe shifted her foot off of the old door or the way Max was busier shooting sideways glances at her than focusing on Nic or even Geoff, this statement had not been  _ for  _ him or his listeners. “We snuck out of the bedroom and went up to the lighthouse. That's kind of when I remembered the 'dream' again. I was still dealing with that when Chloe told me why she was extorting Nathan. You've had that story so I won't go into it, but I kind of spaced out at the end and then....”

  
  


“And then?”

  
  


“I was back in the Storm. Same spot, same lighthouse, only the storm was, well, it was a little different.”

  
  


“Different how?” Nic pushed.

  
  


“More brutal this time. Higher winds, harder rain. Listen, the Storm that wiped out Arcadia Bay was ugly. It - it just wasn't as bad as it was in those visions. It was like whatever we did, I don't know,  _ tempered  _ it somehow. Just a little.”

  
  


“Something you did?” Nic asked.

  
  


“I'm getting there,” she assured him. There was an edge to her voice again. “In  _ this  _ vision, I was back at the foot of the steps and I wasn't alone. There was a doe.”

  
  


“There was a doe?” Max continued speaking without taking a break to let him finish speaking. Nic tried not to take offense to that.

  
  


“It was big, translucent and pale, but just solid enough for me to realize it was leading me up toward the lighthouse. I had to use my powers like, three or four times to stop myself from being taken out by rolling logs or a tree that fell or even the top of the lighthouse. When I got up top, where Chloe and I had just been standing, I found a newspaper stuck to a nearby broken fence. The newspaper was dated on October 11th, 2013 and the storm was coming in.” It sounded like the woman was going to claim she not only had had a warning about the storm itself, but  _ when _ the storm was coming.  _ The idea that she did something to make it 'not as bad' as it could've been, too, is a little bit messed up. “ _ I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder – someone grabbed me. When I turned around the storm was gone and I was back in that same spot, with Chloe holding onto my shoulder. I spilled  _ immediately. _ ” A self-deprecating smile popped up on the woman's face. Max looked down and shook her head, giving Chloe's hand a very tight looking squeeze. “Of course, she didn't believe me when I told her everything I knew on the spot.” Nic could understand that. A small part of him didn't believe her, still, right then and there. “She thought I was on drugs until, well, what did you call them? The 'abnormal astronomical and ecological events' started. It was an especially warm day for the fall, so when the snow started falling, Chloe more or less believed me. She kind of had to. We both thought it was a bad omen. What says bad weather more than other bad weather, right?”

  
  


“Dark storm clouds?” Geoff shot at her. Max took no offense to his off the cuff humor. 

 

“Yeah, well, I saw those, too. Just, on the 11 th , that Friday.” Max paused at this, as if pondering how to proceed. A thoughtful look passed across her face and then she shrugged. “I still needed to prove it to her, but she was listening. The problem was I was tired and a little bit freaked out.”

 

“Naturally,” Nic said.

 

“Naturally,” she agreed. “So I went back to the dorms. The next morning I heard some students bullying Kate, so I went to talk to her. She told me that, at a party run by Nathan Prescott and his friends, she blacked out and apparently made out with a lot of guys, which got posted on the internet and spread everywhere.”

 

“Ouch.”

 

“If you'd ever met Kate, you'd understand how absurd this is. She is a quiet, shy conservative girl with  _ all kinds of  _ strong convictions about abstinence from sex and drugs and booze.” Max shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortably for a moment, as if there was something she was considering saying and then she shook her head and went on. “What really upset me after the day I'd had before, was that she said that she remembered that Nathan offered to take her to the hospital, that she came to briefly in a bright, white room with someone talking to her and then she came to in her dorm room, which is not bright or white. After what Chloe had told me, well –“

 

“You thought that Kate Marsh had been one of Nathan's victims?”

 

“Yeah, I did,” she answered. Max had so far let her bag kind of hang down around her. In that moment, though, she pulled it up higher on her shoulders and released Chloe's hand so that her left could hold onto the strap at about shoulder level. “I encouraged her to hold on while I found proof and then left to meet Chloe. If I could convince Chloe I was telling the truth, then we could go find proof together of what Nathan was doing and  _ then  _ maybe we could figure out what to do about the storm.” There was an obvious question, one which Nic hated to ask but figured he wouldn't be really covering his bases if he did not. Nic glanced to Geoff to see that the man was wrapped up in the story and not thinking of it himself. He sighed.

 

“Did you ever consider telling someone?” Max looked taken aback for a moment and then made a funny face, wrinkling her brow and smirking at him.

 

“Nic,” she told him, “you claim to have experienced some scary, paranormal stuff, right?” Nic nodded. He didn't  _ claim  _ to, he just had reason to suspect he had. The difference seemed minor. “Okay, but here you stand in the middle of what used to be my hometown, in the middle of all this destruction everywhere and even YOU don't believe me right now.” He felt sheepish, his shoulders lowered slightly. “What was I supposed to say? Imagine, 'Oh, Mr. Policeman, I had a vision of the future and the world's going to end'!” Each word came closer to being spat out than the last one.

 

“I take your point,” Nic told her in what he thought was a calming voice. Max was certainly not as forward about every moment of irritation as her partner had been but Nic could hear the tension building every time he interrupted with a statement that implied or even could be brought around back to the fact that he was skeptical of the girls' story. “So how did you prove your powers to Chloe?”

 

“Well, it involved a revolver, an old car and five beers. Don't look at me like that, I’m not even kidding.” Nic had to admit that he  _ had  _ just pulled a face. “The point is, in the process I had another vision of the storm, again. Like last time it was mostly the same, but a little different. This vision was a lot quicker, but the storm was much more brutal. There wasn’t much time to relax when I came back to myself, either and all of that using my power had given me a headache, not to mention a hell of a nosebleed. I mean my head was  _ splitting.  _ I started to get worried I was doing some kind of long term damage to myself.” Nic could sympathize on one front: he had worried a time or two exactly what big picture consequences of the Blur would be like for him. Then, after living with the Blur buzzing aorund his head for a day or two in the woods, he had simply stopped thinking about that. If there was brain cancer in his future, he couldn't do anything to stop it now.

 

“I was reeling from the headache and the vision. The storm had been  _ so _ scary. To be honest, this much of Blackwell still being upright is amazing.” Nic thought that that might be going a step too far. A few short walls did not an upright building make. “While I was trying to recover, Frank showed up.” The woman dropped the name so casually that Nic rather thought he ought to recognize it. It took him a second, during which he held up a finger to tell her to wait, but eventually it came to him.

 

“The drug dealer that Rachel Amber got involved with?”

 

“Mainly he came by to threaten Chloe and get some money she owed him but in the process we spotted a bracelet on his wrist. It had been Rachel's. This is kind of when Chloe and I started working on trying to find Rachel Amber together. Frank didn't like Chloe asking questions about Rachel so he made a couple of threats, stole the gun Chloe had taken from her step father and then promised to see her on Friday with it.” It sounded to Nic like they might have gotten  _ lucky  _ to only lose a gun. “I went on back to school, because, well, I was going to be in trouble if I didn't show up at all. Unfortunately, that was a bad day, like, a really bad day.” Nic gestured for her to go on, but as soon as he did he regretted it. Max had not been pausing for dramatic effect, she had been doing it to gather herself together. The woman grimaced.

 

“I saw David following Kate around the grounds taking photos of her and like, a minute later one of the big bad jocks ran into the photography classroom and warned us something was going on. We all got out of the building, hurried toward the dormitories and Kate was on the roof. I got there in time to see her step off the ledge.”

 

“You're saying you witnessed Kate Marsh kill herself? Because my notes say she –”

 

“Yes and no.” Max interrupted. He had interrupted her, to be fair, so turnabout was fair play. “She jumped, but by this time I was starting to get confident. I rewound. Only, it hurt. It hurt a lot. I hadn't exactly recovered from earlier and when Kate jumped again before I could come up with a way to stop her, I rewound again. Something felt wrong. The pain was so bad. I thought I was going to just drop dead of some kind of freak aneurysm. There was a pressure in my head. I could barely think, I felt like my eyes were going to explode. I know I had another nosebleed going but I kept trying to rewind. I couldn't. The thing was, that's when I realized something. If I focused through the pain, on the moment, I realized that I could keep myself frozen in  _ that _ moment of time.” Max's serious tone of voice softened a little. “It worked, too: Kate stood there on the ledge, not jumping, not moving.”

 

“So, you hit some kind of a cosmic pause button?”

 

“If hitting a pause button felt like someone stabbing you in the brain with something sharp and white hot, drenched in alcohol and then using it to pump air into every corner of your head until it popped like a fucking balloon and rained grey matter on the crowd like a confetti cannon then yeah, a pause button.”  _ That was oddly descriptive.  _ It was easy to see ways in which Chloe had influenced Max. He wondered, if he watched, if he might be able to spot ways it had worked in reverse. “I kept the world paused and I went inside the dorms. I climbed the stairs. The door to the roof was unlocked. It shouldn't have been. David got suspended for it. Nathan got suspended, too, after I accused him of drugging Kate later, but I got to the roof.” Nic had suspected where this was going to lead the moment that Max began to talk about her magic pause button.

 

“So, you're the girl who talked her down, the one from the news reports?”

 

“Yes,” Max said quietly. “It was nothing. Kate just needed to know she had been loved. She needed to be reminded about something good, someone who gave a damn. Like her little sisters. She loved them a lot.” Oddly wistful, the woman paused and then made as if to shift subjects. She was spoken over, instead by the taller of the pair, who was looking askance at her partner.

 

“Max is being modest. It was not nothing.”

 

“Anyway,” Max exclaimed over Chloe's objection. “I told Wells what I thought I could. David and Nathan got suspended. Nathan threatened Wells and then I left.”

 

“You left?”

 

“Yeah, Nic, I just left. I didn’t want to be around any of the people in there. Mr. Jefferson had made Kate cry. Wells had done nothing for the school. David was a douche and Nathan, by then it was already clear that Nathan was a real piece of shit. So I left. I went out and sat around on campus until my friend Warren came by and found me. Everyone else left me alone. He sat down beside me.” At that, Max pushed out of her corner again and made for the gap between wall segments through which she had led them some minutes before. Nic blinked at the sudden departure and hurried to follow. Chloe or Geoff one was hot on his heels but he didn't turn around. Max did not stop as she pushed aside or sidestepped various bits of school ephemera.

 

“What happened next, then?” Nic pushed.

 

“To tell you the rest of the story, I’d need to take you to the last location.”

 

“The last location?” This caused Max to pause. She turned back with some frustration in her eyes, but also sadness on her face. Nic did not understand the blonde's pursed lips or her set jaw. Why did people so often react to his questions with irritation?

 

“The lighthouse,” she finally told him, as Chloe moved past Nic to join her girlfriend. The lankier woman looked as if she was fairly sober by that point. “The honest fact is that I think I’ve had enough for a day. I know that that’s going to suck to hear, but I have. Besides, maybe after some rest and time to think, you'll be sure you believe me.” Somehow, Nic wasn't so sure but he stayed silent as Geoff passed him and Chloe, not Max, led the way out of the school.

 

_ That afternoon was kind of quiet. We left Arcadia Bay limits the same way we entered: past the displaced roadblock. Once we got back to the hotel, instead of any kind of wrap up, Max went back to her room. She voiced a desire for a little time alone so, Chloe and Geoff hung out outside while I had a shower. The junkyard, the Blur, Blackwell Academy, honestly I felt like I  _ needed  _ a shower after that. Ultimately, I decided that I didn’t believe in time travel, at least not the kind that Max described. However, the Blur had marked this place as, at least, Tanis Adjacent. When they finished telling their story, I intended to push them to take me out to the woods, to the places they used to go sometimes. After reviewing most of my recordings for the day I came to the conclusion that despite my beliefs in time travel, personally, I had to accept that something outside of the natural happened here. Between the Blur acting like I was in the Calm and the damage done to the city, I was begrudgingly starting to accept their story. _

 

_ I was also beginning to confront the whole 'loss of life' thing and I had to think about how best and most tastefully to tell this story whatever my own beliefs were. Over a thousand people died that day. This is why I have pushed aside most of the conspiracy theories about Arcadia Bay from Lizard Man to Weather Machine. Now, I had stories about dreams, time travel and some sort of nature-controlling teenage girl. I did not want to sound like the biggest conspiracy nut of them all. I went to bed that night unsatisfied with my plans for laying out this narrative. _

 

_ The next morning, we met for breakfast and I could tell from the moment Geoff and I walked into their room that something was different. For one thing, neither of them could stop  _ smiling.  _ I figured they would when it came time to go to the lighthouse, but during breakfast, it was like they were privy to some joke that Geoff and I were not.  _


	9. The Seer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's nice to get back to it. Felt weird not to post last Sunday. I've been consistently posting at least once a week on this site for a loooong time now.

Disclaimer: I own the rights to more or less nothing seen here, nothing from Life is Strange or the Public Radio Alliance or Pacific Northwest Stories. This is entirely a fanbased work for personal enjoyment. 

* * *

 

# Chapter Nine: The Seer

 

Max lowered herself into the seat not opposite of Nic but of Geoff. Despite the fact that she did not make eye contact with either of them, Max remained well aware of what she was doing. To Geoff's left, Nic sat rigid, contemplative, his eyes sharp and locked upon her. Max wanted the excuse of the distance between them to wait there as a potential out for breaking off contact with him during the meal. Max was not about to let him wipe the smile off of her face. Not him. Not anyone. Max pulled that smile up like a shield against an incoming blow. The chair to Max's left slid back along the ground, making an unpleasant noise as Chloe dropped into it. The silence at the table became immediately pregnant will all kinds of negative energies, but before anyone could comment on that, Max spotted movement from the corner of her eye.

 

Dressed in an outfit far too reminiscent of the uniform for the Two Whales Diner, one of the waitresses made her way toward them, fishing a pen and pad from her apron. Max tried not to continue to draw parallels between this diner and the one at which Joyce Madsen once worked but now that that gate had been opened she couldn't quite close it. The place was about the same size, had a similar color scheme going on and, if she was honest, felt like it had the same atmosphere. The biggest difference seemed to be that it wasn't full of fishermen coming back from the water or about to go out on it. Unlike Arcadia Bay, the town of Edgeton wasn't costal in and of itself. Before the woman could reach them, Nic drew Max's attention back to the table.

 

“How did you two sleep?” the man asked.

 

“I had some problems,” Chloe answered, immediately. Max had not yet said a word about it, but she had a feeling that her nightmare about finding Rachel Amber's body beneath the remains of Blackwell Academy had not entirely been her own. The bluenette to her left did not match eyes with Max when she glanced sideways but did reach out with her right hand to grasp at Max's left. Max squeezed back.

 

“I slept a lot better than I expected, at least,” Max answered, fixing the smile back on her face. She had tried time and time again throughout the trip to figure out precisely what would be needed to convince Nic and Geoff of their truthfulness. Last night she had come to the conclusion that she had been too subtle, too roundabout. Today, Max was determined not to be. She didn't voice any of these thoughts, but only turned back away as the waitress came to a stop in front of their table in her pale blue uniform. Max lifted her head. The woman was probably only about five or six years her senior, but she looked awfully tired in the moment. _Long night last night?_ Max couldn't help but wonder.

 

“What can I get y'all to eat? Do you need more time?” Max tried to turn up her smile a bit, to make it something other than the shield awaiting the proverbial mace.

 

“I just need a stack of pancakes and coffee.” Slight relief flooded the woman's face and that seemed to be a signal. To be fair to the others who were suddenly scrambling for menus, Max had not particularly looked around to see if anyone else was ready. Normally she would feel a little bit guilty about that, but in the moment she simply hoped they hurried up. “Lots of coffee.” Max hated coffee, openly and loudly. This made Chloe's momentarily gaping mouth make perfect sense. This day, Max needed it. She needed the bracing taste, the quick infusion of caffeine. She needed to be entirely on top of things and in control of herself because she knew one thing for certain: what she was about to do was going to suck more than anything else she had had to contend with since the _last_ time she stood at the base of the lighthouse waiting for them in Arcadia Bay.

 

“Scrambled eggs, OJ and a couple of piece of toast,” Geoff declared, sounding a bit relieved. He then hurried to add, “dry toast, please.” Max considered calling him a heathen and giving him hell for the last part, but she resisted. Chloe ordered something similar, only Max knew she enjoyed her butter and Nic eventually settled on a couple of eggs over easy and sausage. As the waitress took away the menus in front of them and walked off with their quickly scratched out orders, Max fell silent all over again, though she tried to keep a calm smile affixed to her features. The others, apparently not alright with the quiet which had overtaken the table very briefly before, continued the discussion. While Geoff had apparently slept like a baby, Nic implied that he had not slept well at all.

 

Instead of trying to draw out the small talk the conversation shifted, as expected, to the reason they were all in Oregon. For the most part, the men simply talked to Chloe about how she was dealing with seeing Arcadia Bay again. Occasionally they gave Max an opening to jump in but she did not. Whenever they referenced her or the story she was telling, that she was going to _finish_ telling that day, they both looked away from her if she tried to match eyes with them. Max took this to mean that they continued not to entirely trust or believe her. It no longer mattered, necessarily, whether they did or not precisely _because_ she was going to make them believe. In very plain, calm terms, Geoff described the first time he had ever entered a town which had been completely destroyed by bombing.

 

“The place didn't matter to me, but it was still a _lot_ to see. They hadn't been able to get everyone out yet and, well, you could tell. I didn't sleep for a damn week.” Beside Geoff, Nic looked uncomfortable perched on his chair. Max rather thought he was close to suggesting a conversation change. Perhaps that was for the best, because by this point enough time had passed that the twenty-something woman from before was approaching with a fairly large flat, round tray in her arms. Max scooted the glass of water which had been waiting for her when she sat down out of the way of the incoming food.

 

“I hope it doesn't take a week for these fucking nightmares to stop,” Chloe grumbled as she began to do the same thing to Max's left. “It's one thing for me to have them, giving them to Max is another.” Max watched the men share a look. Nic grimaced. Max smiled at them more widely than a moment before and attempted to keep up a cheerful facade as food was distributed, as she thanked the woman for remembering to bring a large bottle of warm maple syrup and as she drenched her pancakes in them generously. Opposite of her, Nic cut into his eggs without speaking. Apparently no one among them was inclined to say grace. The crunch of Geoff's bite into his dry toast did grate at a small portion of her brain which was still able to be annoyed by such tiny oddities as some dry-toast eating heathen. Max took a knife in one hand, fork in another and cut into her pancakes as she tried to consider how best to phrase her entrance to the conversation. She settled on blunt honesty.

 

“It’s time to end this,” Max announced, looking up to match Nic's eyes so he knew she was _damn_ serious. When the man swallowed, Max took it as acknowledgment and turned toward Chloe. The woman to her left tried to match the grim smile set on Max's own face. That did nothing to hide the worry beneath it. Chloe Price's feelings, her ways of behaving were familiar and comfortable to Max nowadays. She was not as much of a mystery. This worry was a piece of the woman she loved and Max didn't think she could ignore it. She nudged Chloe's knee with her own and tried to put a _real_ smile in place of the poor facsimile already on her face, but she did not know how successful that process was.

 

“End this?” Nic asked. Max blinked at him. It was _way_ too early in the morning for this parroting back your words thing. _Calm down._

 

“Today's the last day we'll be doing all of this. Chloe and I talked last night and we'll be checking out of the motel tomorrow.” Max didn't want to tell him that they intended to have one last visit to Arcadia Bay of their own accord, without the men. It wasn't any of their business. Nic set aside his fork and looked contemplatively around the table. Geoff continued eating, though he was clearly paying attention. Chloe had also set aside her meal. Max hadn't particularly intended to stop anyone from eating so she didn't say anything else.

 

“How long do you think it'll take today? After you're done with the story, I have something to ask you both.”

 

“It won't be as long as yesterday,” Max told him, before taking hold of her own fork again and spearing a piece of pancake on the end. In her head, as she lifted the bite to her mouth, Max ran through the plan. _The lighthouse, the physical connection, the proof, the slow build, the story and then the end._ Max swallowed as she looked back up. The food, which had sounded so good when she ordered it, was dull and lacking even drenched in maple syrup. “We'll have time to talk about whatever you want to talk about after.”

 

“Or, we can get shitfaced after,” Chloe interrupted, far too loudly and eagerly. “I'm _super_ down for that.” Max shrugged a begrudging agreement. She wasn't entirely sure she was down for getting 'shitfaced' or that she ever _had_ been, either. The fact that Chloe was was concerning enough. _Relax. This was always going to really suck for her. It's important we get this over with._ It was more important than she had thought it would be when she first proposed the trip to begin with. She turned her head briefly to look at the man in front of her, but Geoff was still eating his toast, silent and more or less unresponsive, though he did briefly meet her eyes when he caught her looking. _He'd drink with you, Chloe._ Some sort of mutual understanding had formed between her girlfriend and this man on the day they met, however shallow it might run. Max didn't quite get it, but that was alright by her. Chloe got it. That was good enough.

 

“I'm going to ask you guys to take me somewhere when we're done with your story.” Max shrugged at Nic. She wasn't sure where he had in mind, maybe the coast where the storm made landfall, maybe Chloe's home or maybe back to the school. It didn't matter to Max. Once she had gotten the story off of her chest, once she had made him understand that she was not a survivor of Arcadia Bay, then she would feel better. Then, and only then, could she spend her time doing whatever Nic needed to make it worth his while. She just had to be sure that he knew that if he was talking about her, he was not talking about some tragic survivor. Max found that important: she did not want to lie to him or to his listeners.

 

Chloe's right hand came to rest on Max's knee. It was a comforting gesture, not teasing at all. Max did not desire either, nor did she think she required or deserved either. The realization that part of what had made yesterday so hard on her was her fear of Nic's final judgment had shaken her and continued to do so more than she wanted to admit. Hadn't she _wanted_ to open the door to the judgment of the rest of the world? They would be right to stand in judgment of her and in her mind it was more than time to get on with that. Nic was going to be the one to see to it. Max exhaled and went back to work on her food. Chloe's hand moved away after having gotten very little response from Max at all.

 

A few short minutes later, Max pushed her plate away. She wanted to pretend to have really enjoyed her meal, but for the most part it had tasted like very little to her distracted brain and more than half of the stack remained on the messy plate. On the plus side this odd dulling of her taste buds had transferred over to the large cup of hot coffee, which might have been for the best. Max genuinely did not care for the drink. She leaned back in her seat and tried not to appear nervous or anxious to get on with things. Even so, it seemed like Chloe and Geoff were done with their own meals far more quickly than Max had expected. Max clenched her hands together between her knees, unsure what to do with suddenly shaking hands. 'Let's go,' she wanted to tell Nic as he picked at the final couple of bites of his eggs, 'let's get it over with.' She did not. Max kept her hands clenched between squeezing knees and tried her best to remain calm. She could not have shaking hands. She could not afford to have her focus or control undermined.

 

“Ready?” Nic asked, quite out of nowhere as he settled his fork down beside the last two or three bites of food on his plate. Max didn't like the idea that she might have somehow hurried the man enough that he wasn't going to finish eating, but Nic was a big boy, he could decide things for himself. Max nodded. Nic shot a glance to Geoff, who shrugged and then Chloe who did not say or do anything in answer. It only took a moment or two for Nic to wave down the waitress and only a minute or so more for Max and Chloe to leave payment for their meal and then some behind in cash. Max stood from the table, dropping another five on top of the pile of bills half trapped beneath her empty coffee mug. Maybe it was a larger than normal tip, but someone, Max thought, deserved to have a good day.

 

When Chloe stood to follow, Max made for the door without waiting for the others. She shot Nic a smile as packed full of confidence as she could manufacture and then crossed the room. She rather hoped that it would unnerve him. That might make it easier for her to get the effect out of the coming demonstration that she wanted. Max wanted the man to be open to everything she was about to say or do. Leading Chloe out to the car, Max did not turn back. It took her a moment to fish the keys out of her pocket and get the driver's side door open. Looking over the roof of the Ford Fiesta, Max matched eyes with Chloe as she reached down to unlock Chloe's door as well.

 

“Are you going to be okay, Max?” Max shrugged but then thought that that might not be a good enough answer. She lowered herself into the driver's seat and waited a second or two for Chloe's door to open before shutting her own.

 

“I'm gonna be okay as long as I've got you with me,” Max insisted. That felt honest enough. Well, as honest as Max could get without seriously upsetting Chloe. The truth was that she had a feeling that after this was over she wasn't going to want to leave their room other than to go to work for the next week. Standing in the ruins of the Prescott Dormitories had not been the highlight of the last couple of years. For a time, Max had truly begun to suspect she was getting over the guilt she felt whenever she thought of the fates of everyone in Arcadia Bay and at Blackwell Academy. The fact that looking around Blackwell had made her want to vomit and had brought all of those voices and faces hurling accusations at her back to the forefront of her mind told a very, very different story. Max swallowed and started the car.

 

“Where else would I be?” Chloe asked her.

 

“I don't know, but I couldn't blame you for wanting to be anywhere else.”

 

“Not without you, you dirty hippie.” Max nodded, offering Chloe a genuine if sad smile.

 

“Do you have the marker I asked you to bring?” she prompted. Chloe quickly fished the large marker she enjoyed 'tagging' with from her pocket. She waved the writing utensil in front of Max's eyes once and then returned it safely to her pocket. “Good,” Max answered as she turned back to the diner in front of them to see Nic emerging, absurdly long jacket and all, from the building. Geoff followed suit, his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

 

“Why?” Chloe asked her. Max tilted her head a bit and turned around. _I guess she was more tired than I thought._

 

“Do you remember the plan? The idea I had last night? Or were you too tired?” Chloe looked sheepish in the seat beside Max, which hadn't been Max's intent at all. She wasn't sure if her voice came off more aggressive in the moment, but Max took a second to reign in her emotions. It had to be pretty clear to Chloe, at least, that Max's smiles and pretensions at a good mood were all bullshit. She didn't want to come off as angry, least of all at Chloe. Not given where they were or why they were there.

 

“Something about stopping time again? Like you did for us at Blackwell when I was too out of it to walk.” The woman's cheeks turned slightly red.

 

“Yeah,” Max confirmed as she looked away from Chloe's embarrassment. “Something about it. Just keep the marker with you, okay?”

 

“Yes sir, bossman sir,” Chloe quipped back, saluting. Max rolled her eyes. Only a few feet away first Nic and then Geoff climbed into the truck beside them. Max thought that Geoff lowered himself into the truck as if he were sore, as if his back hurt. _Maybe he doesn't care for the beds at the motel?_ Geoff turned his head after shutting the door, raised an eyebrow at them and started the truck. Chloe waved to the man to signal for them to follow and Max backed out of their parking spot.

 

Max devoted as much brain power as she could spare from the road to keeping the plan in mind. She did not lead them into the town proper or to Blackwell, but this time to the base of the hill where the lighthouse still stood. Much as she had planned from the beginning, Max turned off of the road into a small drive up to the parking lot with her mouth clenched shut and her mind firmly on what was going to come next. She looked down at the wheel and acknowledged her shaking hands, but did her best not to give them the lion's share of her attention. Max couldn't blame this one on the caffeine. She had been close to this back before she had even gotten her coffee. Unfortunately, before Max could reach the little lot up ahead completely, Chloe let on that she had not been oblivious to Max's state by speaking for the first time since they got out of Edgeton.

 

“Are you going to be okay?” she asked Max, again. Max rather thought the woman's silence had been in answer to her own, so she felt it only reasonable she reply when asked a question. The thing was, Max was honestly considering telling her everything she had not when Chloe had asked this same question outside of the diner only a few minutes prior. Again, that seemed more likely to cause trouble than to fix anything and it certainly would not help Max's own mood. The drive widened as it spat them out into the parking lot.

 

“I'm going to be okay. I need to get this over with, though. I've gotten what I wanted from this. I know what's true and what isn't. Those doctors were wrong. They _were_ wrong.” Max didn't mean for the last sentence to sound so much like a question, but it still did and she couldn't help but look at Chloe as she pulled the car into spot in this surprisingly clear lot.

 

“Damn right they were,” Chloe insisted. It only took about a minute after Max killed the engine and unbuckled her seatbelt for Nic and Geoff to park and climb out of Geoff's dark truck. Unfortunately, halfway out of the driver's seat of their rental vehicle, Max realized that something in the next car was very wrong. “What in the hell?” Chloe asked as she unbuckled to follow Max from the Ford Fiesta. Max shut her door behind herself and squinted at Nic as he all but spilled from Geoff's vehicle and stumbled to stay standing.

 

Still dressed for the cool day which they were likely to be exposed to up on the hill, Nic had his recorder already on and in his right hand but he stood hunched forward and unsteady on his feet. Max blinked as Chloe straightened up and shut her own door. Geoff followed Nic from the truck and before Max could come up with what to say about the man's sudden shift in demeanor, his frown, his hazy eyes, Nic turned to his left and began to walk toward the path up to the lighthouse without a word. Max followed, not interested in waiting on Geoff to shrug as if he did not know what was wrong or Chloe to look distrusting and concerned. All of those things could play out behind her turned back just as well.

 

Nic shifted forward and backward as he walked, however barely. He did not quite give off the impression of a drunken man but he did seem unsteady on his feet which made the strange lead he was taking all the more upsetting. Pairing that with his silence, Max had to admit that she was a bit concerned about the stranger. She was also not too fond of what this strange turn of events might mean for her plan to convince Nic and Geoff that what she was telling them was the truth. Her eyes wandered off of Nic's back. If he fell, there was little more she could do than try to catch him and not be bowled over by the larger man.

 

Things on this little path which she had been traversing since she was a small child were _very_ different. The path itself was mostly overgrown and there were still a couple of downed trees in the way. It was almost impressive to watch Nic climb over these as if he were far more sturdy on his feet than he looked. Max's hands had not yet ceased shaking. This strange turn of events, the uneasy mechanical movements of the man five or six steps ahead of her, they had done little to calm her nerves. The top of the lighthouse came into view before Max finally turned back to look askingly at Geoff. Nic had been silent throughout the entire walk save for small grunts of exertion as he cleared an obstacle or the sound of his footsteps and judging by the shake of Geoff's head or the alarm on his face, Max had to assume the man truly had no answers for her. Chloe raised an eyebrow. Max shrugged.

 

“Nic, are _you_ alright?” Max asked. The man slowed as he reached the top of the hill, inhaled and turned back. His eyes were still dull and glazed but the frown had smoothed out into an unnatural, neutral expression, not at all like the quizzical face he put on when asking his questions or listening to their story. It felt unnerving to see this man she had only just met in this state. Then, slowly, he blinked and his eyes widened, clearing as if he had only just realized where he was. Nic turned away from her.

 

“I don't think I am,” he answered. Max inhaled and started to speak, to redirect the conversation to the reason they were there, but the minute she tried, Nic raised his left hand and continued to turn on the spot. Max stepped aside so that Chloe and Geoff could crest the hill behind her. Those wide, saucer like dark eyes swept across every inch of the hill around them. If he had been closer to one of the ruined fences along the edges of the cliff, Max would have been concerned. As it was, Nic stood dead center of the hill, turning on the spot. Paler than usual, he looked back at her, then at Geoff or Chloe and then back away. _He looks just like he did in the junkyard, yesterday._ He looked sick. As if he had been taking in everything around him in excruciating detail and found something he was looking for, Nic nodded and began to walk away from them, not toward a cliff edge but toward the lighthouse. Max knew a small door waited at the base of it. No longer did Nic move in a slow crawl, but he still did not take confident even strides, either. He still looked a little bit like a wind-up toy walking jaggedly across the grass.

 

“Nic?” Geoff called, starting to pick up the pace to fall in line beside Max as they both made to follow him. Perhaps sensing that Geoff and Max were more than capable of catching him before he made it to the lighthouse, Nic began to run. It took very little time for him to reach the door to the lighthouse. In her childhood it had always been locked. She suspected it was no longer the bright green it had once been, either, after years of weathering. She could not see the door past Nic when he came to a stop, but he could hear the noise in his throat as if he had started to talk only to forget what he was going to say. Nic reached out and placed one hand on the door, then glanced back at the three who had stopped only feet from him. For a moment, he looked confused, mouth moving as if he was trying to speak but could not produce any sound and then his eyes rolled back in his head and Nic Silver dropped to the ground on the spot. Max made for Nic, Chloe at her side, but Geoff's voice cut across the wind and the waves and Chloe calling Nic's name.

 

“Stay back!” While for a moment, it looked as if Nic might be seizing, his body grew still well before Max reached out to grab Chloe by the arm and stop her from approaching, well before Geoff planted a foot on either side of him, reached down and turned him on his side. “I don't think it's a seizure,” the man added, his expression calming slightly. “But better safe than sorry, you give him space and I'll try to figure out what's go-” the man turned his head and his voice cut out mid sentence in an unfortunately accurate imitation of Nic's own shortly before his collapse. However, in Geoff's case it must have been the result of mild surprise because a second later, he spoke again. “Oh, come _on,_ ” the man groaned in exasperation.

 

Max followed his gaze to the door. There, spread across the fading, yellow-green metal in bright red letters was the phrase 'THE SEER'. Unlike the prior two instances of graffiti, where there was dirt or other filth to make it hard to see how long it had been since the work was done, Max didn't have to be Chloe to recognize that the spraypaint had been applied to this door recently, maybe even as recently as sunup.

 

“Are you fuckers _here?”_ Chloe asked out loud, turning on the spot to look around them. Apparently she shared Max's suspicions. Max was about to walk carefully around Geoff and the prone Nic to investigate the door when she heard a gasp. Geoff stumbled backward as Nic reached back and pushed himself up into a sitting position. Even Max stopped in her tracks and watched the man take one or two panicked looks about himself, his chest heaving and then shake his head. The panic in his eyes faded.

 

“Nic, are you with us, buddy?” Geoff asked as he offered Nic a hand. The man glanced about, confused and then took the hand. Between the two of them, they got Nic standing. The most encouraging thing Max saw out of the man's behavior was that the first thing he did was check the recorder in his right hand and then shrug as if to say it was uninjured.

 

“I think so, could someone tell me what's going on?” _Okay,_ that's _not good._ Max and Chloe stood quietly and let Geoff and Nic piece together the last couple of minutes. Nic had no memory of touching the door to the lighthouse or even approaching it. He certainly had no memory of collapsing. For Chloe's part, she had apparently decided that no one was out there with them at the moment because she ceased checking the brush around the length of the path up. By the time that Nic and Geoff had finished recollecting themselves, Max felt unsure whether they were going to proceed at all, but she certainly did not expect what Nic did next. Instead of declaring his intent to leave or a request to be taken to the hospital the man took a step away from Geoff and immediately reached out for the door to the lighthouse again.

 

Max gaped at him.

 

“Alright, buddy, keep this up and I'm calling your friend MK on you.” Nic did not answer Geoff. He did not react when Chloe seconded this sentiment. Nic simply stood still and tall beside the door, pressing his hand against it just below the text that read, 'THE SEER'. After several seconds had passed and Nic had not fainted again, the man removed his hand and turned around.

 

“The Blur is really active here,” Nic declared.

 

“What's the Blur?” Max asked him, finding herself curious. As Nic flexed his left hand and slid it back into his jacket pocket, Max realized her own were no longer shaking. How weird was it that she had been calmed down or distracted by something so absurd?

 

“I think we should do what we came here to do,” Nic said in response, turning his dark eyes back on Max with a look that bordered on imploring in them.

 

“Geoff, help me bring the beers up here, we're going to be a few.” Max and Nic turned similar confused looks on Chloe and Geoff looked from one face to another before shrugging. Chloe pulled her own hands from her jacket and waved for Geoff to follow.

 

“We'll be right back, buddy.” Max did not say anything and Chloe didn't look to her to rate Max's response, which rated pretty close to 'flabbergasted'. Nic, on the other hand, looked frustrated as Geoff followed Chloe back toward the parking lot. Within a second or two she and Nic stood up on the hill alone. Max looked about. She rather wished that the old bench which she and Chloe had once sat side by side on was still there. _Though, if either of us should sit down, it's probably him._ As much as she would like to do as he suggested and get on with the story, she had to wait for Geoff to come back, first.

 

“I really need to know what's going on,” Max told the man. “If you're going to, like, pass out or something and get hurt, I think you should tell me what's happening in case we have to get you to the hospital or something.” Nic shook his head and then said something that annoyed Max to no end.

 

“You wouldn't understand. You wouldn't believe me, I don't think.”

 

“You mean like you don't believe or understand anything Chloe or I have said?” Max snapped at him. In response, Nic's eyes locked on her own and she was brought face to face with a world full of doubt and irritation. Max knew the device in Nic's right hand was still running and wondered if that was keeping him from saying whatever was on his mind. Instead, they held a staring contest for several long, long seconds. Max liked the idea that she had finally managed to annoy _him._ It was for the best. Nic sighed. She could hear frustration and anxiety shaking in his throat.

 

“You're right, I don't believe you have some kind of powers. At least, not completely. I don't know what to make of you two and your story. I'm trying to figure it out.” Max shrugged, she appreciated his complete honesty but had nothing positive of her own to say about his doubt. The fact of the matter was, part of her suspected they would have conquered it that first day, that the desolation which _was_ Arcadia Bay would have already done so. It was clear that with every word Nic said, he was exposing a piece of himself to her. Max did him the courtesy of paying more attention to that than the urge to tell him that his doubt did not change reality. “I've been through unbelievable things, too. Maybe they were dangerous things. I still don't know what happened in that cabin in the woods. I don't know what happened in the Calm. I know that while I was in the Calm something got into my head, something I call the Blur. It buzzes in my head, usually kind of like a static. It pulls me toward something, something strange near me. It's like it tries to warn me, or protect me or something. I've only ever felt it in the woods around Tanis before but it's here, too. Right now it's screaming in my head and it's not pulling me towards something so much as everything: every direction, every step. Toward the cliff – toward the path, all of it. There's a whole hive of angry hornets in my head and I want to throw up. It's never been like this before except yesterday in the junkyard. I don't know what it means and it is – honestly, freaking me out a little.”

 

“Good,” Max told the man as part of her brain tried to process everything he was saying. Nic's head snapped back off. While he had spoke, the man had tried to look anywhere but right at her. This quick and unexpected response to everything he had told her, however difficult it might have been for him, seemed to have struck him as if she had smacked him in the face. “Not that you're suffering,” she told the man quickly, not looking to really piss him off, “but that you understand what it is not to know what's happening to you. Now imagine that I were to tell you with every look on my face, every tone in my voice and even sometimes outright in my words that you were full of shit.” Nic swallowed. The slight edge to his gaze, the slight look of almost delusion began to fade and be replaced by guilt. She wasn't sure Nic had ever intended to look intimidating but just in case Max was not about to break eye contact with him. Whether intended or not, Nic _had_ momentarily looked like he was capable of getting very angry with Max. She felt ready to let him know that that didn't phase her. The sound of footsteps interrupted their silent stare down, one which had begun to feel absurd the moment it started.

 

“If this doesn't make you eat those words, there's almost definitely nothing I can do to do that,” Max told Nic before she turned back. Only a few steps away from the path which led up to the hill, the pair behind them dropped the full cooler to the ground with a loud _thunk._ Both sets of eyes passed curiously between Max and Nic. She knew the tension was obvious: she could feel it in her own set jaw and grinding teeth, for one thing. She would have bet anything that Nic was just as see-through on that front. “Could you pull out that marker?” Max asked Chloe, gesturing her over. Geoff followed a step or two behind as Max took in Chloe's slowly hardening expression.

 

“Yeah,” the woman agreed. By the time she had reached Max, the object in question was in her hand. Max looked away from her to Geoff and then to Nic.

 

“I get that you don't trust me not to lie to you, but do you trust me enough to believe I'm not looking to hurt anyone?” Nic nodded when Max turned back around. Geoff gave his customary shrug as if the question was not at all off putting. “Then come here. “ One by one, Chloe, Geoff and Nic approached her. Max continued to gesture them closer when the men stopped a good five feet away from her. She tried very hard not to roll her eyes and was not too terribly upset with herself when she failed. “Seriously, get over here. I'm not going to bite.”

 

“She's not. She prefers to _be_ bitten.”

 

“Not the time, Chloe,” Max shot back, but it took some effort to suppress a smile. Chloe shrugged, waving the uncapped marker in the air as if to say 'hey, you need me, be nice'. Slowly but surely she managed to convince the men to _definitely_ violate her personal space and get into her bubble. It wasn't entirely pleasant, exactly, but necessary for what she was going to do. “Nic, Geoff, what time is it?” As Max predicted, Geoff tilted his wrist back for the old analogue watch on it and Nic's left hand fished his cell phone out of his pocket. _Perfect,_ Max thought.

 

“11:05 AM,” Nic and Geoff answered. Nic held the phone in his hand though he had to hold his arm at an odd angle so as not to elbow Max. She was sure it seemed strange with all the space they had that Max wanted them all to stand close enough that she could more or less feel everyone's body heat.

 

“Write that down?” Max asked Chloe, hopefully. The woman looked left and right as if looking for a piece of paper and then shrugged. Max watched her roll up her left sleeve, expose the pale skin of the inside of her arm and then scribble '11:05 AM' down in large, unruly symbols. Chloe looked at it for a moment as if to check her handy work and then showed her arm to Geoff and Nic. The two men responded with shared looks of confusion. At this, Max reached out and wrapped her left hand around Nic's right, careful not to jar the recorder loose from his grasp. “Grab onto Geoff. Chloe, hold onto my shoulder.”

 

“What?”

 

“Just do it, Nic,” Max exclaimed, trying to channel pissed off Chloe or pissed off Joyce from memory alone. She wasn't sure how well it went, but Nic's left hand even grabbed at Geoff's forearm, awkwardly. _Men,_ Max thought despite herself. She shook her head in exasperation as Chloe laid her hand on Max's right shoulder. This caused very little resistance as Max lifted her right hand and looked away from all three of them, following the path of her hand until she curled it loosely in the air. The sensation, an extra sense sort of dedicated to recognizing the passage of time started to react to her focus. Slowly but surely, something manifested beneath her right hand. It was slick, cool and maybe even a little slimy. That being said, it was completely invisible to the naked eye. Max inhaled and seized down on it.

 

All around them, the world drained of color and sound. She focused on the muted hues and the noise of four people drawing breath because these things made the world make sense when it otherwise just did not. The draining color was notable during the winter's day, but more obvious was the lack of wind pushing harshly against her cheek. Every odd little sound died outside of the ones made by her own body and the people around her. It did not take much more than a minute for Max to lock eyes with Chloe and grimly confess through her expression that the pain had come. It felt like a force bearing down on her forehead from inside her skull and someone was just adding more weight to the mix with each second.

 

“I want to tell this story,” Max said, “but I need to cut through this 'super powers' bullshit first. Keep an eye on the time, both of you.” Max slid her eyes closed. This made things both better and worse. Without the input of the rest of this odd, frozen world her headache lessened but without that input it was the only thing she could focus on. At least, beyond the feeling of Nic's hand in her left and Chloe's hand on her shoulder. Nic's hand was already becoming clammy beneath her own. Maybe he was still unwell from this _Blur_ nonsense. Chloe's hand began to cramp on her shoulder, judging by the way she shifted her grasp. Even Max's own right hand hurt, despite the fact that to Geoff or Nic it might seem like she was holding onto nothing at all.

 

“What's happening?” Nic asked.

 

“Shut up,” Max responded. “Just watch the time and let me focus. Tell me when it's been five minutes.” She could not see Nic's frustration but could imagine the frown that surfaced at being told to shut up.

 

“It's been two,” Geoff chimed in.

 

“No it hasn't,” Nic insisted. “It's not even been a minute. My phone says - “

 

“Your phone would,” Chloe hissed, apparently intent on saving Max the effort. Suddenly, that pressure, that force began to push something sharp against the inside of her skull. Warmth and wetness coated her upper lip, she felt the first line of blood trail from her nose and down her chin. “That's the point. Pay attention to Geoff.” The time passed slowly for Max as the pressure worsened and the nosebleed continued. She could hear Nic start to say something and then stop multiple times, probably in response to the blood that was no doubt close to getting on her old, black shirt. _I guess time's not really passing for anyone but us._

  


“Five minutes,” Geoff chimed in. Max tightened her grip on Nic's hand when she felt it begin to move, but she kept her eyes squeezed shut. Small lights and images were beginning to dance behind them.

 

“What do you hear?” Max asked him.

 

“Nothing,” he answered quickly, sounding alarmed.

 

“That's right,” she told him, before slowly opening her eyes. Light flooded in and everything inside of her spoke of wanting to sit down – or better yet, lay down and sleep. “That's right. No animals. No wind. No waves.” At this last, Geoff and Nic's heads jerked around simultaneously. Max felt an uncouth pleasure at the victory ringing through every corner of her mind not currently under assault by the use of her powers as the men turned to look out at the ocean. “My head is about to bust open so tell me what you see before I'm the one to fall down or something.” She hadn't even had to _tell_ them to look. Geoff paled, now. Nic's mouth gaped for a moment and then he answered.

 

“Where are the waves? Why aren't there any waves? Why isn't the water moving? What happened to the ocean?” The man was genuinely alarmed and, however sad that was, Max thought it a good sign.

 

“You'll understand in a minute. Now look at me,” she encouraged the men. However, they both continued to stare out over the glassy, frozen ocean in something of a supor. “I said _look at me,_ ” Max commanded, mimicking Geoff's outburst from earlier when he had wanted them to keep away from Nic. As soon as the command registered, she saw that she had their undivided attention. Geoff and Nic's eyes had turned to become locked on her own. The world around her darkened slightly. Chloe looked both relieved and somewhat impressed as Max exhaled and then released her grip on time itself, her right hand falling uselessly to her side. She released Nic's hand as well and then all at once the world began to work again. She was struck by a cold blast of wind as surely as she was the return of color into the already dull winter morning.

 

“What time is it, Geoff?” Max asked. She knew what Geoff would say even before Nic released the man and returned his gaze to his phone.

 

“It's 11:11,” Geoff declared, looking up from his watch.

 

“Make a wish,” Chloe called. The scent of sea salt reached Max and she found herself inhaling. Perfectly natural for the seaside. All was back to right with the world if one discounted the little man in her head trying to break his way out with a wedge and a hammer. Max pulled a bundle of kleenex from her jacket pocket and wiped away the blood from her face as best as she could while Nic tilted his phone toward Geoff and stared at the man wide-eyed.

  


“What time is it, Nic?” Max asked, before tilting her head back slightly.

  


“It's 11:05.”

  


“This time, Nic's phone is right,” Chloe told Geoff. “Sorry, big guy.” Before Max could ask, Chloe rolled her left sleeve back up and exposed the time written upon it. 11:05 AM. “See, Nic's phone is digital. Your watch is analogue. He gets his time from a digital clock, a cell signal. Nic's right on this one.”

  


“I don't understand,” Geoff admitted, quietly. This time, Max did not think she was imagining a dangerous edge to his voice.

  


“I do,” Nic told him as he slid his phone back into his pocket and lifted the voice recorder slightly higher. “She just stopped time – for six minutes.”

  


“You're god damn right,” Max hissed at the man. For a moment the outburst had its intended effect. Nic looked guiltier than he had even a few minutes ago. Unfortunately the entire moment was ruined when Chloe muttered under her breath.

  


“I am the one who knocks,” she grumbled, voice laced with faux menace. Max snorted despite herself.

  


“You ruin literally all of my fun, woman,” Max told her. She received a peck on the cheek for this, before Chloe moved for the cooler.

  


“You two look like you could use a drink.” Geoff did not answer and Nic shook his head no but did not move his eyes from Max's face. That sweet, perverse taste of victory did not leave her mouth as guilt transformed to determination. Oh yes, Nic believed them now and he was as ready to get on with this as Max was. Geoff, on the other hand, turned back toward the sea, presumably to watch the waves roll in once more.

  


“No?” Chloe asked. “Just me? Well fine. More for me.” Drinking early was something of a negative sign most of the time, but this was sort of a special situation. Max didn't say anything. She simply stared into Nic's eyes again. It was a hard act to undertake, she thought. Looking into someone's eyes was both vulnerability and invasiveness. It was painful. It was important. Her hands shook at it, but she took a moment to get used to his belief. Max raised her chin when she was ready to speak and Nic nodded in response. Max started talking.

  


“After talking to Wells, Jefferson and David Madsen about Kate's suicide attempt, I was sitting outside of the school with my friend Warren when the air cooled all of the sudden, talking about the strange week we'd been having. That's when an unscheduled eclipse happened. He's the type who would have known if one was coming... and he insisted it wasn't. It was weird as hell to him but to me it was nothing. Not compared to the storm. Not compared to Kate Marsh, Rachel Amber or Chloe Price. Kate was sent to the hospital and I went back to my room to research theories of time travel.” Max laughed. “That was the plan, but I fell asleep pretty quick. That evening, Chloe and I broke into the school.” Max grinned as Chloe preened.

 

“You broke into the school?”

 

“Well, my stepdouche was the head of security, so I swiped his keys. It got us wherever we wanted to go, except for the principal's office. I don't know why he didn't have the key.” Chloe nodded appreciatively at the thumbs up she received from Geoff. “After some uh - struggles, which might or might not have involved a small IED, we got inside.”

 

“And no one heard something and called the cops?” Nic asked.

 

“No,” Max said, softly. “I rewound once I was inside and just opened the doors.” Nic scratched his chin, face splitting into some confusion. “Yeah, that's a fair reaction,” she told the man, amused that we had gone from disbelief to honest confusion. “As far as I can tell, my power violates the laws of space as much as they do time - and I'd demonstrate again, but that was kind of intense and right now _I'm_ the one who wants to throw up.” Nic gestured for her to go on, so Max slid her hands into her pockets and did so, stowing the wad of bloody tissues in one. “The long and short of things is that we grabbed Kate, Nathan and Rachel's school files. Nathan's was doctored to make him look innocent, but Chloe found the real file on Wells' computer. His whole record was there: threatening people, attacking people, deranged rambling and a scan of a piece of notebook paper which had the words 'Rachel in the Dark Room' repeated over and over on it. We found out that Nathan had accused Rachel of bringing drugs into campus and David had listened, investigated her. At this point I decided that Rachel vanishing, Kate and Chloe being drugged, David being aggressive, Nathan being, well, messed up – it was all connected and I had to figure out how or why. Instead of getting right to it, though, we sort of screwed around that night.”

 

“If by that you mean had an awesome after hours swim in the Blackwell Academy heated swimming pool, yes we did.” Chloe chimed in. Max continued.

 

“I dunno, I guess on my end, that or the next morning was when feelings started to develop, or maybe they happened before or maybe they were always there, I don't know. Either way, we had to get back to work. We dodged security when they caught on and I crashed at Chloe's. The next morning I went back into their garage. The first time I'd found out about David's fucking cameras, so who knew? I managed to get into some of David's files. He had collected all kinds of information on me: online aliases, what I did, who I hung out with, what I was into. It looked like he'd done the same to Rachel and Kate too. In the end, David had a pattern that's kind of important to understand. I'm not here to smear the dead but-”

 

“Then let me,” Chloe told her, punctuating this declaration with the opening of her first can of beer. “David was a sexist, fascist douchebag. He was eager as all fuck to exercise his power over women and girls. He just – he loved my mother.” Max waited but when Chloe raised the can toward her in salute and then took a long drink, Max continued.

 

“That afternoon, we did a little more in the way of breaking and entering. We got into Frank's RV, found out about his connection to Rachel and then we found out Nathan was buying his drugs from him.” Max trailed off as she realized where things were going. She looked between Nic and Chloe and then frowned. “Some other things happened. Actually kind of a lot of other things which involved Chloe dying again, sort of.”

 

“Sort of?” Nic asked.

 

“It was Chloe but not exactly Chloe. It's - a very long story. Anyway, I was determined to set THIS timeline right, so I came back to it.”

 

“Back to it?”

 

“I fucked up. I'd fooled around with my power and made some mistakes. I corrected those but it was hard to - anyway. We grabbed everything we had, all the files, David's, Frank's and Blackwells. It didn't take long to put two and two together. In Nathan's dorm, we'd found photos of Chloe drugged up, a hidden phone suggesting he was getting some _major_ drugs from Frank. And between that and Frank's books we realized that on the night Kate was drugged, Frank met Nathan somewhere kind of out of the way. We went through some stuff David found while tailing people.”

 

“The one thing David did well was stalk,” Chloe said. “Me, Rachel, Max, Kate Marsh. Shit.”

  


“Either way,” Max continued, “we used these files to go out to where Nathan had been seen driving a lot out to a lot. It was an old abandoned barn on the edge of town. Inside the barn we found a trap door leading down a dark staircase to a pincoded door. So, naturally we went in.”

 

“Naturally,” Nic humored her, still looking unnerved, “but how?”

 

“There were three buttons that were almost worn down entirely. It only took so long to get the right combination. Nic, I wish I could show you - actually I probably _could_ show you that place, but I don't want to go back in there. Nothing will ever make me go back in there. We got in and found the Dark Room that Nathan was talking about. Think half prepper bunker, half photography studio with all the high tech equipment. At first it was creepy but interesting, then we found out how everything connected. Tucked away on a shelf were red binders, full of photos of the woman whose name was written on them. One for Kate, drugged out of her mind and one for so many other girls who I didn't really know and – and one for Rachel Amber. We realized these weren't just Nathan's victims.”

 

“David Madsen?” Nic asked.

 

“We'll get there,” Max told him, shaking her head. “The photos in Rachel's binder were, well, it was clear that she'd been alive for a while and then Nathan killed her. He buried her out in American Rust Junkyard but not before posing with her body, in the grave. It was - look. We didn't let cooler heads prevail. We went there, we found her body and then that night I guess part of my brain just shut down.” Max inhaled and exhaled slowly as Nic raised an eyebrow at her. It was time to finally get on with it, to tell them about how _fucked_ up she had become.

 

“What do you mean?” Geoff prompted.

 

“The part of my brain that didn't want Chloe to hurt anyone,” she clarified for Geoff. “The part of my brain that wasn't okay with violence for revenge. It just shut off. We hunted for Nathan. We went to the party on campus and I got stopped outside to take a photo with Warren. I know it sounds silly to bring up but photo was important. It was more important than the two moons that were hanging in the sky, that everyone was taking pictures of. At this point, the weird things that attracted you, Nic, they meant almost nothing me and less to Chloe. That picture with Warren might be the second most important photo ever and it meant so little to me in the moment that I just handed it to him without even thinking about it.”

 

“Why is it important?” Geoff asked her. Max slowed and examined the man. He looked a little less openly shaken than Nic did, but Max got the feeling that he had already had enough for one day.

 

“Photos are like a little slice of time,” Max told him. “And I can travel through my own. We didn't find Nathan at the party, but he did text Chloe. - or we thought he did.”

 

“Thought he did?” Max blinked, unable to stop from imagining Nic for a moment as being covered in brightly colored feathers and speaking through a sharp beak.

 

“Nathan Prescott was already dead when the End of the World party started. His partner had killed him because he was too unpredictable. He was going to frame Nathan for everything they'd done. This partner pretending to be Nathan texted Chloe and told us he was going to move Rachel's body. So, we hurried to the junkyard. It was an ambush. Someone was waiting with a needle not far from the body. I was drugged.”

 

“You were drugged, by Nathan Prescott's partner?”

 

“Mark Jefferson.”

 

“The files did say that Mark Jefferson had been arrested on suspicion of murder. I just didn't realize they were connected.”

 

“They were,” Max promised him, firmly. “Unfortunately, the drugs running in my system stopped my powers cold. I couldn't do anything. and so I couldn't stop it when Jefferson shot and killed Chloe in front of me. I could definitely remember the sight. I remember all four times I've ever seen her die and I will never forget them. I won't go into detail in what happened next: I woke up in the Dark Room. Jefferson toyed with me a while. Took photos, ranted, angry, insane. Right when he was ready to kill me, David burst in. I think he just followed the evidence we put together – we left the board laying out in Chloe's room and he had no problem breaking into her room. It took me so many rewinds to figure out how to distract Jefferson and save David but in the end I basically stole Jefferson's car and ran away. Before running off, I decided to lie and tell David Chloe was fine.”

  


“See,” Max told the man, “David was the asshole Chloe always thought he was. He absolutely was a sexist, paranoid, pig. He also thought he truly loved Joyce and Chloe. I think more he wanted a family and he wanted to rule and possess it but he definitely felt a little guilty that Chloe was not doing so well. I couldn't tell him she was dead. Maybe it would have upset him, maybe he really thought that what he was doing, the way he acted was love. I didn't know. But I _did_ know how to fix it all.”

 

“The photo you gave to your friend?” Nic asked her. She watched comprehension dawn on his face.

 

“The photo,” she echoed _him_ this time. “I called my friend and found out he was hiding out in the Two Whales Diner with Chloe's mother and Frank.”

 

“The diner went up in flames, didn't it?” Nic asked her.

 

“In this timeline, it did. All hands lost,” Chloe answered for Max.

 

“But not in that one. In that one I stopped the fire from spreading. I lied to Chloe's mother about how Chloe was doing. I took the picture from Warren and I traveled back to the moment it was taken outside of the party. It took a lot to calm Chloe down. She was all white rage and fury, no thinking. I had to tell her things, things I'd learned in other timelines, things I'd seen, things I realized because, I knew what was going on, by that point.”

 

“What was that?” Nic asked her, flatly.

 

“ _I_ had caused the storm. My time travel had caused the storm that was coming. This time, I convinced Chloe not to go after Nathan, not to go to the junkyard when Jefferson texted. We reported Jefferson to David, who turned him in to the cops and Rachel's body was found, for a while. Until the storm at least. Then I sort of blacked out.”

 

“Blacked out,” Nic prompted.

 

“See, when I use a picture to time travel, I kind of snap back to the moment that I used it, like a rubber band stretched all the way and finally let go. So I snapped back to the moment when I took the photo from Warren, only in this timeline, this one we're in right now, I was standing with Chloe at the top of the trail to this lighthouse.”

 

“You were here?” This came from Geoff.

 

“Yes, here. Right where we are now.” Max pointed past Nic, over his shoulder. “I looked out that way, and watched the storm come in. By then, Chloe had used the time I had been – absent, so to speak, to figure out what was happening. What was the moment I used my time travel, after all?”

 

“In the bathroom,” Geoff answered quietly.

 

“Yes.”

 

“That's what you meant by the storm starting there.”

 

“Yes,” she told him again. Nic's doubt had long since vanished even if his confusion had not. Now, in this moment, she watched Geoff's escape him and she sighed. _And now, to bring this all down on your own head._

 

“Chloe pulled out the butterfly photo, standing right where you are now, Geoff. She told me how to stop the storm. Chloe's a smart one.”

 

“She told you to what, go back in time and kill her?” Geoff asked.

 

“Let me die,” Chloe emphasized. “To go back in time and let me die.”

 

“And obviously, you didn't?” Nic said.

 

“That photo with the butterfly could sling me back in time and I could use it to let Nathan kill her to stop the storm. On the other hand, that meant killing this woman I had fallen in love with not to mention my best friend since before I could remember. Then I did something I'm going to have to live with for the rest of my life, Nic. I took that photo from her and I tore it in half. I drowned in self pity and cried like a child while Joyce and David Madsen, Warren, Victoria, Brooke, Jefferson, everyone died, while Blackwell went to shit, while parts of town got swept off the face of the earth completely.” Nic's mouth shut. Geoff did not speak. Chloe's fist gripped at her drink a little too intensely. “

  
You see, I don't have survivor's guilt. The people at the hospital got that wrong. I didn't _survive_ the storm. I brought it down on Arcadia Bay. I killed everyone. I am not a survivor, I'm a mass murderer.” An affronted noise escaped the woman by the cooler. Max waved Chloe before she could argue. Chloe gaped at Max with fist shaking around a ruined can of beer as Nic's arms lowered to his sides. “That's my story. That's what happened to Arcadia Bay. That's why over a thousand people died all at once.” Max exhaled. “The worst part is, you believe me _now_.”


	10. The Runner

Disclaimer: I own the rights to more or less nothing seen here, nothing from Life is Strange or the Public Radio Alliance or Pacific Northwest Stories. This is entirely a fanbased work for personal enjoyment. 

 

* * *

  **Chapter Ten: The Runner**

Nic hated feeling useless. He always had. Maybe it brought him back to times in his childhood when something needed done and he simply hadn't been able to do it. Maybe he had gotten trapped in some dark room, unable to escape some time and forgotten about it. Whatever the cause was, the frustration he felt as Geoff shut the door to the passenger seat of his truck carefully had to be obvious and blatant on his face. Nic  _felt_ useless. His head pounded, his stomach churned, half of the time it felt like he could barely hear over the insistent buzzing in his head, the Blur made manifest. While his arms and legs shook, they still wanted to work in ways that confused him. Sitting in the passenger seat, he had to fight several impulses to reach out toward something which was not there, something which he could not even identify. His entire body felt restless, pulled toward something. Geoff, Chloe and Max not trusting him to stand on his own made sense. As horrible as he felt, he thought he must look much worse. Nic sucked in a breath and held it as Geoff crossed the front of the truck waving to Chloe and Max as if to calm them. He paid attention to the Blur.

The loud, angry hive of hornets he had described to Max earlier remained active. Just as they often made it hard to be sure he had heard a person just right, they obscured and dulled the sound of Geoff opening the door to the driver's side. In the back, Nic knew, was Chloe's low, blue cooler. All he would need to do to get his hands on a cold beer was fight against the seatbelt and his shaking arms, turn his body and reach. It wouldn't do anything to calm his rolling stomach, Nic thought, but it might stop the pain caused by the muscles in his neck tensing up. Geoff got into the truck a little slower than expected, but it was all Nic could do not to throw up, so he did not immediately question the man. Swallowing against a sudden gag, Nic turned. As the man leaned back in his seat, Nic read the soreness on his face with some difficulty. He did not hear so much as see Max turn the key in the next vehicle over, starting their car.

"Nic," Geoff said after a few seconds as Max seemed to pause to adjust her mirrors. "I think they're telling the truth." The man sounded and looked gobsmacked as he spoke. Nic understood. If he weren't feeling so sick to his stomach, he might be equally dumbfounded by his own willingness to admit the possibility.

"Yeah," Nic managed to gasp out around his body's protestations toward this more violent form of the Blur and its effects on his every system. He did not want to think about, much less talk about the implications that this had for life, for the world, for everything. Nic had already dived as deep into thought as his current state would let him and he had come up with this: he had no idea why Chloe or Max would be okay with him releasing the audio he had over the last day and some change. Even if Nic decided to set aside the morality questions involved with the town's destruction  _and_ his personal concerns that the narrative might have been skewed by some genuine self-loathing on the smaller brunette's part, there was the question of what kind of danger this could put Max and Chloe in. No matter what happened out in the woods next, even if he were to somehow be led by these women into the heart of Tanis, Nic had on his lap already a conundrum which he could not satisfy or escape from.

Despite himself, Nic thought about what would be happening if he were up north with Alex and Strand. Sure, their investigation was suggested to have some significance for the world at large, too, but on the plus side every time someone said something absurd about supernatural powers, paranormal entities or the end of the world, Richard Strand was there to smack you as viciously and carelessly as he possibly could with cold logic, hard and sharp as steel. Sitting there as Geoff began to back the truck out of its parking spot, face to face with a power that could let one obviously traumatized young woman rewrite history, Nic rather thought he would have preferred Strand's world view. It would be as inconsistent with all that he had come to believe about Tanis as it would with Max and Chloe's story, though. Being that level of eternal skeptic would be too much.

"I've never been one to think about a lot of this stuff," Geoff started as he waited. Max backed the other car from its parking spot and began to turn around, making for the long gravel drive. Nic listened as the man continued, but like Chloe and Max, Geoff sounded distant as if heard from the far end of a tunnel Nic was not quite brave enough to enter yet. "About time travel and all that fantasy stuff. Look, buddy, no offense but  _my_ Tanis and yours aren't exactly the same. At least, until now. To me, Tanis was some myth that my brother was into, some story that maybe someone scary believed in and that was how he ended up where he did. Now, though..." Geoff trailed off.

"Now?" Nic asked, surprised to have relative control of his voice and throat back.

"Now, who fucking knows, right?" Geoff said as he threw the truck into drive and eased them over cracked concrete where the lines denoting individual parking spots had long since faded and where one was as likely to run over a branch from a downed tree as anything else. "Either those girls got us good and we're having the same  _really specific_ trip or I just saw time stop. A cabin in the woods where weird shit happens doesn't sound so unbelievable, now."

"You were a skeptic before?" Nic asked, surprised. If he tried to cut through the swarm of angry buzzing things, through the last day and a half he could remember their conversation outside of the burger joint just off the highway, less than an hour away from Arcadia Bay. Geoff had encouraged him to embrace his beliefs in Tanis, no matter how absurd, no matter how much they sounded like someone who might be losing his mind. The idea that Geoff had been skeptical even during that conversation didn't track, at least not to Nic's addled brain. The treeline around the drive thickened and slowly Nic's view of the ocean vanished, for the moment.

"I wasn't a full on believer. Nothing personal, bud, that's just not the world I come from." Nic nodded but the nod was a lie. He did  _not_ understand. Another wave of nausea forced him to hunch forward, hands over his mouth and close his eyes. "My world was mission briefings and orders. Not this kind of shit."

"Are you going to be alright?" Nic managed to gasp out once his stomach had again calmed down.

"I'm not the one trying desperately not to throw up in my truck," Geoff shot back. Nic opened his eyes again and looked up, swallowing as if it would prevent him from becoming ill somehow. "I meant what I said: do something stupid like that again and I'm telling your hacker buddy. Maybe she'll, I dunno, screw with your tech or something." Nic wanted to laugh but he did not have the energy. None of this felt like a laughing matter.

"Yeah," Nic agreed. "Yeah." Nic closed his eyes and leaned his head back. He focused on the vehicle turning, twitching, the sensation of the wheels going over gravel. Slowly, he ran his right hand along the length of the recorder he still held. Round and protruding, he found purchase on the 'record' button and finally stopped the device from running. A quick inspection by touch of the recorder turned up no damage from his earlier fall in front of the lighthouse. When Nic opened his eyes and peeked, they were still outside of Arcadia Bay. He expected they would be dipping into it in short order. The look on Chloe's and Max's faces when Nic asked them to take him out into the woods where they used to go as kids still stood out in his mind. They were genuinely flabbergasted by the idea. Chloe's explanation that they used to pass from a small city park to a larger state park through a hole in a fence had done nothing to quiet Nic's curiosity, though. At least, he figured, the fence was probably down by now as a result of the storm if it had sat in disrepair for so long.

He knew that they, and probably even Geoff, doubted that there was anything of note waiting for him out there, but he did not. Maybe this place had once held Tanis or some cousin of it. Maybe not. Whatever the case, in his research Nic had heard more than one story about children playing near some place that bore supposed supernatural properties before. Following that kind of a hunch into the woods with a couple of strangers was a little bit  _out_ there, he knew, but the way that the Blur was acting made it hard not to believe or suspect that something abnormal was waiting for him. Nic would have loved to engage Geoff in conversation about this, to talk to him in more detail, but it had already become incredibly clear that going back into Arcadia Bay was making him worse. Every minute that passed seemed to be worsening the pain in his neck, the churning of his stomach and the irrational urge to run away from the vehicle that kept his legs restless.

"Nic," Geoff started shortly after they crossed into town itself. "Open the glovebox." Nic did as he was told, though the act of leaning forward was enough to make him wince. The compartment popped open and almost immediately Nic squinted to take in the sight of a small manilla envelope and three orange bottles for prescription meds. "You said it was tension in your neck messing with you, right? One of those bottles has a muscle relaxer. It might do the trick." Nic paused and pulled the first one out, his stomach already rebelling at the idea of him taking anything. His left hand clenched against a wave of nausea while with his right he brought the bottle up.

"Fluoxetine?"

"No," Geoff told him, voice steady and even. "Not the Propanolol either. The last one." Nic replaced the bottle. Fluoxetine struck him as important, something significant but he couldn't place it. He couldn't remember why the name stuck out at all, much less what the med was for. The second bottle he grabbed did  _not_ read as Propanolol, so Nic assumed he had found the right bottle. Nic raised it up for Geoff to assess and the man shot a glance at him before returning his eyes to the one-lane road into the town. Nic did not think it would be long now before they turned off of the road, if Chloe's directions had been anything to go off of. Nic relaxed his left hand and slowly popped the cap off, depositing it safely between his knees so it could not get lost should Geoff hit a sudden bump.

"Worst case scenario, I won't be able to keep it down," Nic told the man, uneasily as he glanced down at the small pills. "Might be a waste." As if hearing his welching, the knot at the base of his neck throbbed in protest. Nic was not the biggest fan of taking anyone else's prescription meds but when Geoff gestured to the canteen sitting in the console between them, Nic shrugged and shook a pill out. It did not take him long to twist the cap off of the canteen and throw back the small yellow Flexeril pill. Nic washed it down as quickly as he could. He did not have the thought that this might cause him some drowsiness and dizziness until he had already swallowed the pill, by which point it was far too late. Nic took an extra drink of water, a little greedily as his throat hurt and then capped and replaced first the canteen and then the pills.

"Try to relax until we get this over with. If it helps, it helps." Nic nodded at Geoff's words but couldn't help but focus more on the way his stomach protested either the water or the medication. He wasn't sure which and hoped it wasn't both.

"Thanks, but I think I need to close my eyes." Geoff shrugged so Nic did exactly as he had said he would. Even still it only took the man a few seconds to speak.

"I don't know why we're doing this right now, if you want me to be honest." Nic did not open his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you got your story. You're clearly in bad shape here, buddy. You should go back to the motel, sleep today off like a bad hangover and go home." There it was. Geoff, too, believed that he was wasting his time out there or maybe exposing himself to unnecessary risk.

"Maybe," he told the man. "Maybe you're right. But if there's even a chance of finding something Tanis related in all of this, this is probably the last one. What if these strange abilities came from coming into contact with something in the woods?" Geoff's response was a grunt. Nic didn't know what to make of that and he certainly was not about to turn and look. His closed eyes were doing a great job of providing a bit of a barrier against the world around him. Nic rather hoped that any minute now the buzzing inside of his head would stop and he could open them again. With the possibility of anything involving this trip being Tanis related shrinking more and more by the minute, Geoff's continued support was interesting to Nic, if a bit endearing. He was not sure even in the moment that he could entirely write off his concerns about the man's persona, the face he was presenting to the world but he did feel a little more asinine about wondering whether or not they were truly  _friends._ Whether Geoff thought of them in that way or not, he had yet to do anything other than attempt to help Nic. At some point, Nic had to stop questioning  _why_ he trusted the man and simply trust that trust.  _As if that makes any sense._

It was kind of strange to Nic to think that they had only spent a few hours in Arcadia Bay. In a way, it felt like it had been days – weeks since the trip began. Certainly, there had been enough tense moments, from climbing over jagged, rusty junk while trying not to piss off Chloe Price to the overwhelming attraction he had felt to the lighthouse upon first seeing it not so long ago. This whole thing carried a lot more weight with it, especially when added to the truth of how the town got into the state that it was in, than two days should have really been able to carry. Nic thought it very likely that he was going to need a good week of rest when he got back home, but he also suspected that the urge to finish the episode would be greater than any pull of sleep. When one added his recent natural inclinations toward poor sleep to all of that, that need looked likely to go unfulfilled.

The truck began to slow. Sighing softly, Nic opened his eyes and sat up straighter. They had made it into Arcadia Bay proper, alright and turned into a residential neighborhood to boot. Ahead of them the roads are absolutely trashed. The majority of the debris blocking the road had once been part of homes and despite having been moved out of the way for rescue vehicles, had since fallen and crumpled back into the road. The reason Geoff had been forced to pull to a stop was because Chloe and Max had been as well in response to enough debris to be of some risk to their vehicle. Nic squinted to try to see into the car up ahead but could not make much out about the women in front of them. There certainly seemed to be a moment of contemplation or conversation before the car started to move again, up onto the sidewalk and partway into a yard.

"Now they're speaking my language." Geoff wore an appreciative look on his face for a second before he let off the brake and began to roll forward. There didn't look to be a ton in the way, as long as Geoff got off of the sidewalk before he reached the fire hydrant three houses down.  _Is it really three houses down if there's no house there?_ If either vehicle was fit to go off road to avoid junk in the road, then it was Geoff's truck. Nic relaxed. It only took Geoff a second or two to get around the debris and back on the road. "Have to keep that one in mind. Who knows how bad it could get up there?" Nic nodded. He and Max had spoken at length about how there was really no way to confirm whether or not they had a clear route going anywhere in town. At least they had not needed to get out and walk yet. No sooner had Nic settled back into the seat to close his eyes then he once more felt Geoff slow from somewhere around twenty miles-per-hour to nothing. He couldn't restrain the small flare of frustration as he popped his eyes back open and watched the scene in front of him unfold.

The women in the vehicle ahead came to a complete stop and after a second or two which Nic would later assume was down to unbuckling the seatbelt the driver's side door flew open quickly. At first he wondered if the women were arguing over something and Max was angry: certainly Chloe's rage at the base of the lighthouse in response to the way Max spoke about herself had been palpable. Not productive, certainly, but blatantly obvious. Instead of storming off, once Max half climbed, half threw herself to her feet, she stayed rooted to the spot, not moving from the cement even enough to shut the car door behind her. The vehicle was still running to boot. Nic blinked against slightly watering eyes and tried to focus on Max. She had paused as soon as she emerged from the car, turned and was now staring at a pile of rubble not twenty feet away from her, large enough to have been a fairly nice house but not much larger. All Nic saw was lumber and roofing shingles and filthy siding piled haphazardly. Judging by the obvious quivering lip, Max Caulfield saw something much, much more. On the other side of the Ford Fiesta, Chloe climbed from her seat and hurried around the nose of the car for Max. Nic heard the click of Geoff's seatbelt and reached out with his left hand. The action felt like it took far more effort than it probably should have, but he placed his hand on Geoff's forearm.

"Wait," Nic counseled. "I think this might be something – something just for them." Geoff turned and looked at him, eyebrow raised, but did not get out of the truck. The two watched as Chloe reached Max and threw one arm around Max's shoulder. Nic could see both girls' faces due to how they had stopped in the road. It was clear that they were talking to one another, or at least Max was speaking. The brunette looked angry and upset and spent the next minute or so speaking animatedly with her hands until, finally, she buried her face into them. Even trying to muffle it with her hands, Nic heard her scream. He wasn't sure if it was rage or grief, but Nic found himself wondering if this pile of rubbish a few feet from the girls had once been Max's home in Arcadia Bay.

Chloe's free hand began to gesture back toward the car as she leaned down and toward Max. While Nic waited patiently, Max reached out with either hand, shaking her head and pushing back from Chloe. He could see frustration on the taller woman's face as she shook her head in response and then, a moment later, things began to deescalate. Max's face turned into the very picture of someone placating another which Chloe answered with concern, but it must have worked. It only took another minute or two for the pair to reach some sort of equilibrium. Nic wasn't sure what that meant, but he knew that the form it took was them splitting apart and then returning to their ride. Nic shook his head. He did not know how he could possibly convince himself that either woman was particularly well off. Certainly, he thought, they were in no condition to be making serious decisions. Geoff said something, but Nic could not hear it over the insistent Blur within the confines of his skull.

He did not ask the man to repeat himself.

Their ride after that only consisted of about a three minute jog to the end of the road they were on. One after another the two vehicles pulled into a small lot at the side of the road. To Nic, it was hard to say that this would have jumped out at him as a park. After getting out of the truck, though, Nic spotted what looked like it might have once been a wooden fence lining the edge of the lot. Max and Chloe climbed out of the truck even after Nic, which was kind of a relief because it gave him time to take one or two experimental steps on his jelly legs. The both of them looked to be fairly well in control of themselves when they joined Geoff and Nic. There was no setup as there had been before every trek so far. Nic guessed that made sense: they hadn't planned on bringing him out here. To them this was a place of memory, good or bad, but not relevant to the end of Arcadia Bay. Part of Nic was still not so sure about that last. Nic caught Max giving him a long apparaising look and when he did she lowered her eyes and gestured toward a gap in the wood lining the lot, where, among the overgrowth, he could see a thin line of cement forming the beginnings of a path.

This moment, so minimal compared to the rest of what they had already gone since they had first met one another through spoke volumes to Nic. It told him that Max was uncomfortable matching eyes with people and yet she had gone through so much effort to do so with him at the lighthouse. It was as if she, as if both of these women, had sacrificed little bits of themselves to tell this story.  _I don't understand why,_ he thought as the Blur throbbed in a corner of his mind that it felt like it was taking over. His legs wobbled as he made to follow the women. Chloe and Max linked arms and started toward the path. The Blur, as it worked inside of his mind, had never felt so strong. Not at Blackwell and certainly not at the lighthouse. While Chloe and Max seemed bemused and a little wistful as they headed toward the entrance – marked by the remains of a small wooden arch – but a moment ago they had joined Geoff in shooting him concerned looks. More than that, Chloe and Geoff had shared a glance before the women took off. He did not understand much about the exchange. What he did understand was that no one else thought that this particular trip was necessary or even good for him. The look the pair had just shared had probably been about that.

Nic picked up the pace as best as he could but he knew his legs were wobbling. He knew his sense of direction and balance was off. The best Nic could think to do was keep his eyes focused on the women in front of him. However, when he heard the third woman, the one directly to his left, Nic's head whipped around to try to see the source of the voice whispering in his ear. Geoff paused behind Nic, but when he turned to look, there was no one beside him. Nic grimaced and shook his head. It must not have been a whisper at all, but the wind. He had not been able to particularly make out words, more the  _sounds_ of a voice.  _Hey, you're in a town where over a thousand people died all at once._  Pairing that with whatever was happening to him at the hands of the Blur and Nic rather thought it was impressive he had not started freaking himself out earlier. Still, as much for comfort as anything else, he shakily reached into his jacket pocket, freed his recorder and pressed record.

"I'm having a little trouble hearing you all, so if you have to yell at me, go ahead," Nic told them, hoping that his calm tone sounded real and not like the weak facade he knew it to be. Nic had to confess that his shaking limbs ached but he hoped that once the medication he had just taken kicked in he would see some relief from the pain in his neck and that that might inspire the rest of his body to relax at least a bit. At this rate, no combination of comfortable shoes and broken in jeans were going to keep him from feeling this weekend for the next couple of days.  _I'll have to tell Sarah that I'll be back tomorrow, but will_ not  _be in._

"Oh, we both know I'm fine with that, by now," Chloe told him. Nic tried to smile appreciatively at her. It felt like an olive branch being extended between them in response to the sometimes difficult nature of their interactions thus far.  _Namely, you kind of calling her a liar the entire time she and her girlfriend bared their hearts to you. Those kinds of interactions._  The smile, however, must not have looked good on him, because she frowned slightly. Giving anyone there more reason to worry about him did not sound immediately appealing, so he changed the subject. After all, if the recorder was running it was best to go ahead and try to get something out of the girls on the way out to the woods.

"So, for the listeners at home – where are we?" The fact of the matter was that he didn't remember the name of the park they were entering in that moment, either. He could immediately see how young children and their parents might care for it. The grass was tall and unruly now, but kept short it probably would have looked nice and neat. The women unlinked arms and Chloe reached out to take Max's hand up ahead. No one turned around, in fact their heads only turned to take in the sight of what Nic thought must have once been a fairly large sandbox area. Chloe's steps were careful and measured so, despite having had a drink or three at the lighthouse, Chloe seemed to be fine.

"We're at Carlin Park," she told him. "It's a little city park on the edge of town where Max and I got taken to play when we were like, toddlers." The woman's hand rose and she pointed well down the path toward a jungle gym, past the remnants of the old sandbox. The jungle gym was fairly large a combination of a strong plastic and metal. It also lay in pieces around the park. Nic grimaced. It had to be unpleasant to see your childhood memories ruined like this. Then again, there were obviously far greater ghosts for the women in front of him to work through. "There were a lot of things that could get kids hurt out there, so of course we got hurt on all of them. I even broke a finger fooling around on the monkey bars once."

"Chloe didn't even cry," Max laughed. "She just looked  _really_ confused about what to do."

"Confused  _nothing,_ " Chloe interjected. Nic wished he could have seen their faces. "I was like six! I was scared out of my mind. Fingers aren't supposed to bend that way." Nic smiled at their backs, but he could not help but suspect that the sound of the buzzing in his head was worsening. The force, the pressure in his mind that seemed to have wanted to draw and quarter him at the lighthouse was changing, though. It coalesced behind his forehead, no longer drawing him everywhere at once but in a very firm direction. Nic turned his head to the right, toward whatever was aggravating the Blur but saw nothing more than wild grass, thick dead trees and the occasional downed and rotting limb. Chloe, it seemed, had taken notice. When Nic turned back to the women, she had paused and turned to look at him. Geoff remained behind Nic. "We'll be heading off that way in a second. I want to try to get as close to the place we always liked coming in as possible. It's going to be hard enough to find the old trails after all this time and with the Storm.

Nic nodded. It did, he thought, suggest that there was something out there that the Blur was bringing him to. The woman in front of him was about to keep talking but instead stopped in her tracks. Attached by the hand, Max stumbled at the sudden stop and had to try to stay standing. The taller woman's free hand rose again and pointed off roughly in the direction that she and Nic had already been looking. It took Max a moment to collect herself, but Nic and Geoff each followed Chloe's gaze. To Nic, nothing stood out as special or noteworthy. All he saw was the same unkempt lawn leading to a treeline, the same thick trunks, standing or not. Max made a 'hmm' in the back of her throat.

"Right there," Chloe says. "Look, by the forked tree we tried to climb when that dog got loose that one time?" Max squinted and Nic looked for a forked tree. A small one stood not far from where he had been looking. To either side of it, though, he only saw more of the same. On its left was a strange, deformed tree stump that looked like something was growing over it and on its right, a small space and then another tree. Certainly, Nic saw nothing to explain Chloe's wide eyes or sudden excitement.

"Yeah, we used to cut right by it to get to that game trail your dad found. Your mom would have had a fit if she knew he was the reason we started going into the woods." Max, Nic saw, was smiling somewhat nostalgically but this only caused Chloe to shake her head.

"No," the woman insisted, pointing more emphatically. "Look right to its left." Max squinted again and Nic tried to do the same. All he saw was the misshapen stump.  _It is a bit weird looking. I wonder what happened? Damage from the storm?_

"No way," Max exclaimed. "I saw that it was missing from Blackwell but – but that's a really long way."

"What?" Nic asked, intrigued by the mention of Blackwell Academy. "What is it?"

Max said something that Nic could not understand excitedly and unhelpfully before freeing her hand from Chloe's and then doing something Nic had not seen her do yet. From the bag which she took everywhere with her, Max freed a small, fairly ancient looking polaroid camera and took off at a quick pace toward the tree in question.

"What language is that?" Nic asked, unsure if he was trying to be funny or ask a serious question. For all he knew everyone else had heard Max just fine and it was the insistent buzzing of the Blur interfering with him that obscured her words. What he knew for sure was that when he attempted to hurry after her, the first half jogging step threw him off balance and he almost fell to the ground. Chloe had started to follow Max but paused and glanced back at him in concern as Nic stumbled. Geoff's steadying hands came to rest on Nic's shoulders until the man was sure he wasn't going to collapse and then Nic received a quick pat on the back.

"Take it easy," the man insisted before Chloe took off again, apparently satisfied that Nic was well. Taking it easy meant that Nic arrived just as Max crouched down in the tall, dying grass and took a photo at the object next to the small forked tree. It took him a few seconds at his slow, wobbly pace. Chloe had gotten down on all fours to examine it. As soon as Max's photo was finished, she tilted her head at a very odd angle and pulled a face that Nic had trouble understanding. It was not a tree stump that had drawn their attention. He understood after a moment more why Max was holding her head at such an extreme angle as she shook the freshly taken photo. The object they were looking at was upside down  _and_  a totem pole.

"This used to be almost right at the dormitories on Blackwell Campus. How did it get  _this_ far out?" Chloe asked, glancing toward Max. In response, the brunette shrugged and slowly straightened and stood up.

"I don't know," Max told her as she glanced at the photo. "But the high winds were tossing all kinds of stuff around in my visions."

"This strikes me as pretty hefty, though, and I thought it was partially deep in the ground."

"I just don't know." Some sort of new heaviness weighed the brunette's voice as she again shrugged at her girlfriend. Nic assumed it had something to do with reminding her of the students at Blackwell. "Fucking spooky though." After a moment Max shook her head as if to clear it and then approached the totem pole. "I don't know what happened, Tobanga. I hate to see you like this, but I think it's not my place to mess with you. Be well." The brunette's left hand pressed against the totem pole and then withdrew, covered in dirt. When Chloe stood up from only a foot or so away from it, she wiped dirt from  _her_ hands as well. Nic could see where she had cleared filth from the carvings. Nic thought he understood why Max didn't want to interfere with it. It was a piece of another culture, one that had probably been messed with enough if it once sat on the grounds of Blackwell Academy.

Nic's attitude began to darken as they crossed from Carlin Park into the wooded section which Chloe suggested was a buffer between it and the state park. Something about the pale light of the winter day being partially obscured by the dead trees engulfing them felt ominous and left his chest tight. There had been no change in his neck, to boot. When Nic looked back, Geoff seemed to be trying to keep an impassive face on for the rest of them. Behind  _him_ though, Nic had hoped to see the park they had just abandoned. Instead, suggesting that they had been in there longer than he thought, he saw only row after row of tree trunk. Ahead, Max held her camera in her hands. Chloe had already been the victim of one photograph. Apparently once Max  _had_ her camera out, the urge to use it was overwhelming.

"In a little under five minutes – assuming I didn't get turned around - we should get just over the line into Culmination State Park. Our place should be in the area."

"That's the park you were talking about in the junkyard?" he asked, unsure of himself.

"Yep," Chloe declared. "Parts of it a little farther out are going to look  _pretty_ bare, probably. I imagine the trees and stuff haven't really regrown too well, but we're not going that far out." Chloe continued to talk, either to educate or direct him but her words began to fade, dulled underneath a sea of white noise that Nic knew came from within rather than without. As if made up from that white noise, again Nic heard the voice of a third woman to his left and again, no one was waiting. He staggered sideways, not looking where he was going as a wave of dizziness struck. Geoff's right hand shot out and caught him beneath his left arm. Nic allowed Geoff to steady himself and then the man spoke.

"You okay there, buddy?" Nic shook his head.

"I don't think so," he said honestly, before taking off toward Chloe and Max who had paused just on the other side of a fallen tree's trunk to watch Nic.

"How far in are we going then?" Geoff asked, firmly.  _That might be good to know,_ Nic told himself. He felt like if he could just  _focus_ he might remember one of the women having already told him, though. When Chloe opened her mouth to speak, the white noise again washed her out. It had been threatening to do so with Geoff, anyway. This time, though, he heard no unknown traveling companion. Nic tried to focus on remembering the voice he had caught hint of, but no words came, not even a tone. All he knew for sure was that it had been pleasant on the ears. Whatever Chloe's answer had been, it earned a shrug from Geoff, who continued. Nic carefully stepped up onto the log in front of him, tested his balance on his right foot and then as quickly as he could hurdled over the trunk. It took more concentration than strictly necessary to stick the landing.

"When we were kids, we'd go walking through these woods every weekend, sometimes more often. We even made a trail once to where we're heading. This is kind of where it was, but obviously it's gone, now. We're almost there, though." Max shot a smile back, as if encouraging Nic. He did not like feeling useless and twice in one day, now, he had felt such. He knew they were taking it easy for him and Geoff was waiting to see if he was going to need caught or held up again. "We were so scared when we started that we'd end up getting lost that we couldn't do it very far in. So, just another minute or two, alright?" Max's reassurances just made Nic's stomach churn. Besides that, the way she talked around where they were going bothered him.

"I want to know where we're going," Nic insisted. "I want to be ready." In this moment, out in the woods with two strangers and someone who was still relatively new in his life, Nic felt that when they got where they were going whatever the women thought they were going to show him wouldn't be there. An ever growing part of his mind was sure that a tiny cabin, larger on the inside than the outside, would be waiting in an unnatural clearing. The force concentrated behind his forehead demanded that he proceed onward, in the direction they were leading him. It was a demand he was not entirely sure he could argue against or resist but he still wanted to know what was coming.

"It's really nothing big," Max told him for what might have been the fourth or fifth time that day. "You're going to be disa-" Her voice died. Her mouth continued to move, but her voice as Chloe's had been a moment ago, lost to the white noise in his brain which flared as the force driving him forward grew insistent, humming, buzzing, obscuring parts of the world and parts of his mind in a darkness which was not physical. Nic shivered despite his jacket but there was absolutely no way he was going to keep his balance if he put his hands in his pockets. As if summoned by this thought, his right ankle tilted as he put his foot down beside a fairly sturdy looking sapling. Nic fell sideways into it and grabbed at the oak sapling with all of his might. He did stay standing in the moment, but his weight was very quickly shifted from the tree to Geoff when the man seized Nic's left arm and threw it over his shoulders. The waning strength in his limbs did little to dissuade the urge to continue forward or the shaking of his hands. A part of Nic rather felt like he had a very severe cold or flu.

"Nic's not doing so good," Geoff declared. The tone of his voice made Nic turn toward the man, the slight wrinkling of his brow and the setting of his jaw. Harkening back to an earlier conversation between the two, Nic knew that Geoff was close to calling the whole thing off and in his current state Nic was sure he would not be able to talk Geoff out of it. He wasn't entirely convinced that he would have been able to pull free of Geoff's grasp even if he had been himself, so physical resistance was futile. "If it's any farther than a couple of minutes, I'm turning us back." Geoff made no offer and asked no question. He spoke with finality and authority.

"No," Nic tried. "This is important – but I need to know where we're going." He tried to free himself of Geoff's grasp but as he had suspected, the man was far stronger than him. Nic stopped where he stood. Ahead, Chloe and Max were staring back at him as if they were very close to agreeing with Geoff. With absolutely no one on his side, he would have very little chance of not being overpowered on this.

"It's a pirate fort," Chloe deadpanned, making Nic think he had misheard her. Up ahead was an area which looked a little more open than expected. Not quite a clearing, but something else.

"What?" Geoff asked, laughing openly. Chloe shrugged, but Nic did not. He didn't understand. They weren't going to some mysterious clearing in the woods? There wouldn't be a cabin waiting on him?  _Then why is my head full of the Blur?_ Nic wondered as the girls led he and Geoff through the closest gathering of trees into the small opening. No sooner had he cleared that line of trees and the women had pulled to a stop in the woods then the connection was made and understanding took Nic. His stomach rolled and it took all of his effort not to lose what was left of his breakfast.  _There are four of us. The Dreamer. The Warrior. The Seer. And Me._ Could he be leading them  _into_ Tanis by accident? Could he be leading them into the Calm? If so, what were the consequences.

"We need to stop," Nic told them as forcefully as he could manage. This would work, right? After all, hadn't they all just been thinking of turning around because of him to begin with? "We can't go any farther." The panic in his voice upset Geoff but Chloe and Max shared a dumbfounded look before the bluenette shrugged at him exaggeratedly.

"This is what you wanted," she said, before turning back to a tree in the center of the almost-clearing. Like the one near the totem pole it was forked but it was, in this case, much larger and taller. Max took a step forward.

"Geoff," Nic hissed, sure they were not going to listen. "I think we're in trouble. I think I – I – I might be leading us to Tanis. To the Cabin. To the Calm." Geoff's free hand reached out to rest on Nic's chest and the man shook his head slowly and clearly.

"Buddy, I think I see their fort. Or what's left of it."  _Is it too late?_ Nic thought as he followed Geoff's nod and the girls. Geoff was right though. They had come to a stop at the base of the large forked tree and despite what looked like old two-by-fours and soaked plywood on the ground around it, there was no C _abin._  Nic was not in The Calm. He blinked hard and did his best to pay attention to the rubble around the tree, but his eyes were drawn instead toward Max, who had just snapped a photo of the tree, deposited it and her camera in the bag hanging from her shoulders and was now picking up an old plank no longer than Nic's forearm. The side exposed to Nic read 'PIRATE FORT' in faded paint, which did not entirely made a lot of sense in and of itself. Unfortunately, when Max turned it around to take look at the lettering for herself, Nic spotted yet more writing. On the back of the board, in fresh bright red letters, 'THE RUNNER' jumped out. Nic reeled back, jerking his head to the left as the white noise in his mind grew worse. There was still no one else. Max did not seem to notice what was happening, though Chloe and Geoff clearly had.

"I told you," Max said. "I knew all along this was going to be nothing to be worried a-" the white noise again rose up and swallowed Max's words whole. Nic looked around wildly, trying to find the source of voice he knew was coming as his heart beat rapidly in time with the thrum of the force in his head. Slowly but surely, this strange fifth voice came to be manifest among the Blur. Nic jerked his head to his left again in search of its source but saw only cheap lumber warped and ruined by time and boards nailed to the tree to make a makeshift ladder up to the girls' childhood hideout. Chloe looked to be trying to get Max to turn the board around and read it for herself, but Geoff's attention was entirely on Nic. The man lunged forward to try to get hold of Nic, but Nic knew with certainty that he could not let Geoff do that. He threw himself away from Geoff, lost all balance and turned as he fell.

Nic blinked and then he was somewhere else entirely. He stood no longer at the foot of a forked tree which had once held a child's pirate fort. He stood in a clearing, a different one, much different. The light pouring in through the trees came much in much lower as if it was later in the day or the woods overhead was thicker and darker. When Nic inhaled he still smelled dirt. Strangely, though, bright green leaves waved overhead in a wind which he could not feel. This, Nic knew. This was a woods which Nic might have camped in when he was not Nicodemus Silver at all, but when he was The Witness. He turned as someone spoke words that did not register, but sounded like the sweetest, deepest melody.

To his left stood a woman dressed all in a flowing, long white dress. She was not taller than him, but she seemed to be imposing and towering all the same and must have only been a few feet from him. He could not see her face but he could see her facial  _features._ All together they would paint an image of a person, but he could not seem to focus on them as a whole, only as pieces. Eyes, nose, mouth, chin, dimples. The trees around him danced unnaturally. The woman in front of him struck him with beauty and power, dreadful and almighty. She leaned forward and Nic could focus enough to see the way the dress moved as she did. A long white train stretched out behind her. Her mouth opened. He could not comprehend its appearance or whether she were smiling or frowning but he was hit with a sense of familiarity. This time, though he took away no voice nor tone, he did come away with words. Words which he knew, on an intellectual level, resounded and resonated off of the wall of trees around him, but he could not hear.

"He's waking up, Nic."

Nic came to on the rotted remains of the pirate fort's floor, even if it  _had_  fallen to earth. Something soft was behind his head. Nic opened his eyes and took in a deep breath, the smell of wet and mud and rot all-consuming. Above him, Chloe offered Geoff a bottle of water, presumably, Nic thought, for him. Geoff kneeled not far from Nic. He blinked as Geoff spoke and came through clearly. His stomach rebelled almost immediately and Nic rolled away from Geoff as quickly as he could to loose the remnants of his breakfast along the ground.

"And I thought I was the only one feeling sick," Chloe quipped as Nic gasped in a breath of fresh air and wiped his mouth on the back of his arm. The woman in the long, flowing dress was not with him. She was not one of their traveling companions. She did not exist. Yet, he remembered her in bits and pieces, impossible to put together but so hard to forget.

"Her voice was like – like fire spreading out of control and a sudden rockslide all at once," Nic said, sitting up. "She was right beside me in the other clearing – in the Calm. She told me 'He' is waking up." When he drew in another breath it came easier than it had for an hour. "There are wondrous things." Nic did not understand how to go on describing her. He could imagine the strange curve of her wrist as she pointed at him.  _Had_  she pointed at him, though? If so, when?

"You saw someone?" Chloe asked, an odd eagerness to her voice. He looked up at Max, who did not speak and would not match his eyes. Geoff remained quiet. Nic nodded.

"Someone or something that - it felt like talking to everything. There are magical things." The words made sense in his ears but he saw Chloe's confusion and then a strange, hungry look crossed her face. She dug her hand into her left pocket and freed her phone. Nic did not understand. "I don't know if she was warning me or – or threatening me." Her hair, long and blonde and unruly had danced like the living trees which had surrounded them. Those locks and those trees had been the life that seemed an inevitable balance to the death that existed all around Arcadia Bay, to the leafless trees shut down by winter. "There are dangerous things," he told the others. It was important that they understood. It was  _paramount_ that they understood. Chloe continued to stare at her phone, shifting through it with her finger as if eagerly searching for something she absolutely  _had_ to have. Max's pale lips turned down and she and Geoff had some sort of silent conversation with their eyes. Geoff's head shook. They did not understand and Nic knew they  _had_ to.

 _We get what we deserve,_ Nic wanted to say, but he clapped his right hand over his mouth to keep it from coming out. He knew the words, now and what their importance was. What he did not know was why he thought they were an explanation, a description of this woman who had spoken to him.  _I need to get out of here._  Ignoring Geoff's various protests, Nic pushed to his feet and spat the last of the terrible taste from his mouth. As soon as he looked up from this action, Chloe shoved her phone in his face insistently. Nic recoiled a bit so that he would not be hit by it, but found his stance surprisingly firm and consistent.

"We get what we deserve." The words escaped him before he even looked at the screen.

"What does that mean?" Chloe asked him. "Was it – was it her? Did you see  _her?"_ Nic blinked hard and stared at the photo displayed on the phone. With the brightness as high as it had been set, he had no problem seeing the woman in the photo. She was young, probably eighteen or nineteen and it only took one look at the bright blue earring and the long blonde hair, thick and wild for him to recognize her. The woman Chloe was showing him a photo of was Rachel Amber, her deceased, murdered girlfriend who Chloe claimed had set a forest aflame in a fit of rage. Nic looked up at the sudden, inhuman desperation that cloaked Chloe Price's face and he shrugged, shaking his head.

"I don't know who I saw, I couldn't - I can't  _see_ her. How – how could it be  _her?_ " He did not know why he was asking. Chloe pulled the phone back looking as if the oxygen had been just stolen from her very lungs and took one step back to collect herself as she slotted her phone into her pocket.

"Is this - is what we went through Tanis?" Max asked. This one Nic could answer with some surety. He shook his head quickly and marveled that the pain in his neck had all but vanished. In fact, as he started to speak and then stopped, it occurred to Nic that he felt no pull, no Blur at all. His body was his own again and despite some tenderness in his back and knees as well as a throbbing on the side of his head, Nic felt almost normal.

"No," he said. He was certain that it was not. "But maybe something similar. Maybe related to Tanis. Maybe Tanis or whatever Tanis came from has – claimed the area?" Nic shrugged. It sounded like nonsense to his own ears. "I don't know. That's the thing, I don't know. None of that makes sense to me. None of  _this_ makes sense to me," he said, gesturing around him. "I want to leave." For a moment, Chloe and Max paused, unsure of themselves and hesitant, so Nic turned immediately to Geoff. "I want to leave." The man gave him one solid, quick nod. "Whatever happened to your town, whatever happened to you two and Rachel Amber, it does not sound like Tanis – but it doesn't sound so different from it either. "

Almost five hours later, Nic settled into the passenger seat of the Ford Fiesta outside of their small motel in Edgeton. With the time since splitting up at the edge of Arcadia Bay, all parties had managed to regain control of themselves and while there were, perhaps, as many questions as answers for any one of them, they shared a common need. They all needed to eat and they all needed to sleep. That was how Nic found himself in the passenger seat of the women's rental car with Chloe Price, freshly showered and changed much as Nic was in the driver's seat. Their quest was simple: get to the diner from that morning and come back with six burgers and four orders of fries. He was confident enough in Chloe's driving by this point that he did not feel too anxious when she raised an eyebrow at him to ask if he was ready to go. Nic nodded.

_I didn't know it yet, but five hours after dinner ended, Chloe Price and Max Caulfield would pack up their things and abandon the motel in the middle of the night without much more than a text message indicating that they had to make a stop in Arcadia Bay before they could go home. Later, I managed to learn the truth of this stop, of what had driven them to leave early. Chloe and Max stopped by the American Rust Junkyard to, in Chloe's own words, 'talk to Rachel Amber.' Since receiving that message I have had a lot of time to reflect on what this story meant not just for me but for them. I would like to say that I hope it brought them each some peace and closure but I do not know if that might be hoping for too much or not. Instead I'll say this: it takes a lot to speak the truth when no one will listen. I have no doubt that I spent two days with incredible people, but I am also certain that their story, while precisely the type of thing which I yearned for when I started this podcast, is ultimately not related to Tanis. The Blur being so strong and insistent within me, I can't really explain, the woman from my hallucination of the clearing, I don't think I'll ever be able to identify, but I learned that there is so much more mystery in the world than any of us ever dreamed when we started this journey. The question is whether some mysteries are meant to be known about, much less understood or if they are best left buried whether by time or by destruction._

_I want you to ask yourself something and really think about it for a while: what are the consequences of a world with all mysteries laid bare? I am reminded of the Cult of Tanis and their saying: 'There are wondrous things. There are magical things. There are dangerous things.'_

_Maybe we don't want to know what we deserve._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Accidentally uploaded the wrong chapter just now, hope no one saw that!


	11. Epilogue: The Yule

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be sure to read the next "Chapter". A surprise.

Disclaimer: I own the rights to more or less nothing seen here, nothing from Life is Strange or the Public Radio Alliance or Pacific Northwest Stories. This is entirely a fanbased work for personal enjoyment.

* * *

 

**Epilogue: The Yule**

Though he had not touched the stuff himself since leaving Oregon just over a week ago, Nic rose from his perch on the lid of his own cooler, once upon a time used for camping, and gestured to it as his new arrival hung a jacket up on the long, dark wooden coat rack beside the door to the Seattle Public Radio Alliance offices. More specifically, the coat rack, the cooler and the folding table around which the red cooler and four disparate chairs were arrayed had been shoved into the main office, not Nic's small recording studio turned office. He had quite enough to haul out of there any time he wanted to do an actual recording without adding the fixings for an impromptu party on Christmas Eve, something that was only happening because he had finished production on the Arcadia Bay episode early. Unlike Chloe and Max who had yet to arrive, his first guest did not have anyone to rush off to to spend his Christmas with, so as Geoff freed himself of his jacket and stretched, Nic saw his eyes shoot for the cooler.

I guess neither of us really have anyone to spend Christmas with, Nic thought, before shrugging the idea off. The desk in the corner, usually reserved for the intern assigned to Tanis, was piled high with both her files and his. He felt bad about it, but Nic had been forced to record a last minute addition to the end of this episode hours ago and that had necessitated clearing his desk. T'was the night before Christmas, he mused as Geoff called a greeting.

"Merry Christmas," the man opened with, before rubbing at his apparently still cool hands. Nic had not seen Geoff in person since their return to Seattle. Since then, he had had a lot of time to think. There was little else to do when you could not sleep and you were trying to follow 'good sleep hygiene' by not engaging with anything with a screen after a certain hour. Mostly, his thoughts were about Tanis, the wider implications of his time in Oregon and about a clearing in a woods he had most likely hallucinated. Occasionally, though, he thought about the people he had spent that weekend with. Not the least of these was the tall, average built man with a smile that Nic now saw as slightly more strained and some sort of issue with back pain. Nic had, out of curiosity, looked up the medications Geoff took. He wasn't sure how happy the man would be about that, but his journalistic impulses extended to every corner of his life, especially his Tanis life. As a result, Nic saw Geoff in a new light. It was a light that made him very, very glad to see the man walking into the Public Radio Alliance studio.

"Merry Christmas," Nic responded. "Grab a beer and I'll even have one with you."

"That's getting into the holiday spirit," Geoff told him. The man crossed the room, an act which really only took four or five good strides and lifted up the lid on Nic's cooler. "You're feeling better, then?" Nic pushed his hair back from his face. It was getting to the point where he was either going to need a cut or he needed to think about getting a hair tie for times when he needed to look half presentable. Though, there was probably going to be a good week or two more where his hair was just too long to look good and too short to put up.

"Yeah," Nic told the man. "Yeah, I just needed a lot of sleep." He only wished he had gotten a lot of sleep. Geoff came up with a couple of bottles of Guiness, pulled an amused face and settled them both onto the table. Nic took one and settled back onto the lid of the cooler. Geoff took the nearest seat to Nic's right and grabbed for the bottle opener on his keychain. Nic had one sitting around here, somewhere, but Geoff passed his keys over, waited for Nic to pop his top and then gestured for him to set them down on the table. "It got a little crazy out there."

"A little?" Geoff said. "Hallucinations, time travel, sharing dreams - "

"Yeah," Nic answered, chuckling. "I take your point." Nic wasn't sure what it was about the idea of reuniting with the women that evening that appealed to Geoff. The veteran had, certainly, developed some form of friendly bond for a while with Chloe Price and while they had not parted ways unkindly, it had hardly been under terms that suggested they would all have fun getting together for an impromptu party on Christmas Eve. Nic still remembered his confusion in the morning when he found the text telling him that the women had taken off in the middle of the night. It wasn't as if they had had any plans to go back into Arcadia Bay together: Nic had had quite enough of that for a lifetime. It was just a bit jarring to find them gone without any kind of formal or even informal goodbye. He hoped that, whatever form 'talking to Rachel Amber' took the two of them had gotten in and out of Arcadia Bay safe that last time. On the plus side, when Nic had first contacted them a couple of days prior to let them know that he was going to finish the episode of Tanis featuring their hometown before Christmas Eve, Chloe and Max had sounded, at least, somewhat excited, if not downright friendly.

"You ready?" the man beside Nic asked as Nic raised his drink to his lips and pulled at the first of the ice cold beer. Really, though, Nic wasn't sure how to answer that. He was certainly confident in his work both on the narration and the production of his episode. Despite the fact that he knew that a big part of the reason the women were cutting into their Christmas Eve time with Max's parents was the promise of previewing the episode whose working title was 'A Weekend in Arcadia Bay.' However, there was a slight problem, a surprise which he did not think the women were guaranteed to take too kindly to. He had kept that to himself thus far, but there was only so long he could continue to do that. Pairing that with Max's announcement that she and Chloe had had a question about 'something you said when we first met' and Nic had to admit he was a little nervous about the gathering. The way Max had phrased it made it seem like a minor curiosity, but when Nic pressed she had just insisted they would ask in person and something about that struck Nic as being anything but a minor curiosity.

"As ready as I can be," Nic said. "How about you, how've you been? It's been a bit."

"A whole week and a half," Geoff pretended to agree, his tone a bit teasing. "I've been good. Just doing my usual: morning workout, veg out in front of the tv and put in that nine-to-five in between. You know, just a normal guy doing normal people things." Methinks he doth protest too much, Nic thought, shaking his head. He wasn't amused at the lack of acknowledgement that Geoff was carrying around some combinations of medication that suggested he might be dealing with some sort of severe anxiety issues, maybe even Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The amusement came from the idea that Geoff was 'just a normal guy'. Nic wasn't always sure of much about the brunet in front of him, but he knew better than to be that gullible. "Well, either way, you look like you're doing better."

"I've been fine ever since we left Arcadia Bay," Nic promised.

"That's not what I meant." Nic lowered his bottle to the table, left hand resting just beside it. "You looked like  _shit_ when you came to the bar to pitch Arcadia Bay to me. Maybe this Blur messed with you mid op, but everything wasn't copacetic before that." Nic sighed and leaned forward.  _Maybe he has a point._

"I'm not sure what's worse; remembering parts of the Calm, not remembering the Cabin or the things that I say during the hypnotherapy sessions with Dr. Bernier. Whenever she tries to pull the Cabin out of me, all she gets is – nonsense. But it's really disturbing nonsense. I guess I was focusing a lot on all of that and the whole thing with Cameron Ellis." Geoff nodded and took a long sip. "I haven't exactly slept like a stone since then, actually, but I guess it has gotten better."

"Did you figure out what to do about Ellis?" Nic smiled, a little ruefully.

"Yeah. Yeah, I have." A small silence descended on the room. This might be an amazing time for Nic to bring up his concern for  _Geoff's_ mental state but somehow it felt unkind to do. Or perhaps he felt like there was an unbalance in their friendship and speaking up challenged that unbalance, risking the friendship, or at least risking bringing it under the kind of scrutiny that might end it. Nic raised his bottle to his lips. After a few seconds, the moment passed. "I wonder how this'll go."

"Well, I like Chinese, so works for me," Geoff answered, as if unaware of the delicate topics and details at play in the coming evening. Nic did not think he was so clueless, but he wasn't sure if Geoff thought or had thought as deeply about all of this as Nic had. "When are the rest of the guests getting here?"

"Max and Chloe should be any minute now," Nic mused, looking up at the time displayed on his hi-fi across the room. "They were happy we were doing it early enough that they won't miss some family tradition of the Caulfields or something." Geoff nodded, turning his eyes on his beer as if it held his attention, and then the man smiled with a sly grin on his face. Slowly his eyes shifted toward Nic.

"And the rest?" he queried.

"Later," Nic told the man, his voice as like a brick wall as he could make it: firm, passionless and impassable. Nic did not feel like going down that road with Geoff. Who knew where that conversation led? "You can't really tie her down to a particular time and she doesn't really trust it if you try to." That was all he really wanted to say on the subject.

"That's fair," Geoff answered. "I get it. Element of surprise and all that." Nic only held back rolling his eyes with the  _greatest_ of effort. Besides, it wasn't as if Nic didn't suspect himself that that was  _precisely_ the woman's reasoning. Nic glanced about the room for a change in subject. Soon enough, the Hi-Fi on the small table in the corner would be all the distraction they needed, but for now he thought it could do them the favor of a little bit of music. Smack dab in the middle of the table, beside Geoff's keys, sat a small, square remote which only needed a moment or two of button pressing before the sound of music began to pipe from the small, if high quality speakers on the device in question. It was a simple FM alt rock station but, it would do the trick for some decent atmosphere. While Nic was perched on the lid of his cooler, there were still three empty chairs around the table, not counting the one occupied by Geoff in the moment. Certainly they would be more comfortable, but Nic was raised to put guest comfort over his own, even if that meant he had to jump up every time someone wanted a drink.  _And since Chloe and Geoff will be in the same room..._ Nic was close to voicing his sudden concern that they might want to make an emergency run to a nearby liquor store when the sound of fists against his door cut across The Revivalists coming from his stereo.

There was a chance, however small, that the insistent knocking came from someone working in one of the other spaces in the complex. Nic didn't think the music was too loud, certainly below the volume it would take to drown out comfortable conversation. More likely, though, he thought as he rose from his seat and made for the door, the guests of honor had arrived. He heard Geoff dig through the cooler he had just been sitting on. The old knob turned beneath his hand and the pale door swung inward. Sure enough, pressed to the side of a woman with bright blue hair (bluer than the last time Nic had seen her suggesting a fresh dye job) was a small brunette with a bag around her shoulders and another bag, this one plastic and disposable, hanging from her left hand. The girls were linked at the arms.

"Merry Christmas," Chloe greeted, lifting her right hand up to show off a twelve pack hanging from her grasp. At least it didn't look like there were any trips to the liquor store in Nic's future. He stepped aside, trying his best to appear the welcoming, gracious host. The truth of the matter was that while it was not unpleasant to see the women, their appearance did heighten his anxiety a bit. Nic gestured inside as Max raised the plastic bag up in a similar gesture to Chloe's. The pair entered.

"Hey, come on in," Nic told them. "You do remember that I ordered Chinese right?" he queried Max, as he had a feeling that the bag came from some kind of takeout place and it  _was_ rather large.

"Yes," she answered, "And I  _fucking_ love it. So, here." Without explanation, the brunette shoved the bag into Nic's hands. All he could tell right off the top was that it contained a box inside of it, and whatever was inside of that was actually fairly warm. As the couple entered, Nic shook his head and brought the bag to his stretch of the table. The door shut behind Chloe who entered last and strode across the room toward Geoff.

"Hey there big guy," Chloe said in way of greeting. Nic watched her offer a fairly large smile, one in contrast to the smaller, if merrier smile her girlfriend wore.

"Cheers," Geoff answered, tilting the neck of his bottle toward her for a moment. "How are you doing?" he asked Max. While Nic opened the plastic bag to get to Max's mystery package, he saw that Geoff had retrieved drinks enough for Max and Chloe, as well as another for himself and Nic. All in all, it looked like Geoff was ready to get the party going. Nic couldn't entirely blame him, mind you, but he was going to have to take it easy on the drink until such time as they finished what they had all come here to do.  _Well, maybe the biggest thing emotionally we came to do?_ Nic did consider this a bit of a Christmas party. Perhaps some of the more important people in the long term were missing: his parents, Alex, MK, but there were still friends here, gathering about a tiny folding table in his cramped little office space as X Ambassador played in the background. About that, Nic had no doubt.

"I'm alright," Max told the man. Nic tried to listen to her voice to see if she was lying, to see how alright she truly was, but had trouble reading her. That, he thought, only made sense. "Hungry, thirsty, can't wait to hear what's going on with the episode." Nic swallowed.  _Oh, boy._ Max did seem, for the moment, to be in a good mood. He just hoped that it held up when he gave them the news.  _Then again,_ he looked at Chloe as she reached for the bottle opener on the table and sought to begin her own drinking.  _Maybe Max isn't the one I should be worried about._

"You look like Christmas came early," Geoff told the shorter woman.

"Max got promoted," Chloe told them as Nic freed long, thin white box from the bag in front of him. The box was warm as hell and if Nic didn't know better, he'd say he smelled something sweet. Chloe sounded absolutely proud to fill them in, but that pride was eclipsed by the tone of near fawning in her voice when she corrected herself. "Well, it's more like she walked in and  _demanded_ a promotion from the asshole she works with and finally got it." The bluenette looked at Max with something that spoke of carnality in her eyes, so Nic decided it was best not to think too deeply on the gaze.

"If I have to work on  _this_ side of a gallery, I want to be helping people find what they're looking for," Max said, rolling her eyes at the look Chloe had shot her. "Not to mention help photographers sell their work, so this is great."

"That is awesome," Nic echoed. He reached out a hand for a shake. "Congratulations – and Merry Christmas." To his immense relief, the smaller woman seized it and gave him one firm shake before joining her partner and settling down around the flimsy table.

"So, have you been good, Geoff?" Max asked.

"No ma'am, good is boring. I like to misbehave."

"Good man," Chloe echoed. Unable to entirely resist opening the box in front of him, one which he now caught Chloe side eyeing, Nic did not join in on the banter as it unfolded to Chloe being a poor influence on Geoff.  _As if Geoff needed a poor influence._ He reached down, found the lower edges of the side of the box and lifted the lid. Nic was hit in the face immediately with the smell of sweat, warm pastries.  _Dear god._

"Fresh donuts on Christmas Eve? At  _this_ hour?" Max flashed a thumbs up.

"They're sort of my go to, especially when I'm carb loading with Chinese food."  _Oh, right._

"I made sure to order a bit extra in the way of lo mein and pepper chicken for anyone who might be extra hungry," he told her. "They deliver to me all the time out here, so sometimes they toss in a little extra anyway. Consider this me paying them back a bit." When no one immediately spoke up in answer, Nic barely suppressed a frown. The punk sat with a beer at her lips, her hair swept back and a little out of order, torn tee entirely unbefitting for a winter's day. The photographer's hands rested on the table in front of her folded over and she had not yet removed her old, dark gray jacket, as if she were still cold. Even Geoff quietly spun his bottle between his hands as if bored. It was, he knew, his cue.

"So," Chloe started, leaning forward and rubbing her hands together. He nodded toward the twelve pack on the table in front of her and then gestured to the cooler he had been about to perch on again.

"Beer's there, toss some of yours in if you want."

"That's not what I was excited for," Chloe told him, looking a little bit dejected. Nic knew that. He wasn't sure if it was anxiety or just the urge to string everyone along a few more seconds that kept him from diving right into the feature presentation.  _Probably a bit of both,_ Nic admitted to himself. In retrospect, that felt a little bad, though, because he realized that the others were probably as anxious as he was. "But a good idea."

"Right," Nic said, before nodding toward the door to his own, smaller recording booth turned office. While Chloe opened the box she had brought in with her, Max and Geoff followed his gesture as Nic made for the door. He left the table, his guests and the donuts behind. Listening to the sounds of Chloe retrieving can after can and trying to fit them into the, admittedly, small cooler already fairly full of ice and drink did keep Nic from feeling any kind of separation from the 'party' as it were when he crossed into his office. The desk was mostly clear for the moment, a couple of small files and his recording equipment were the only real clutter. What Nic's eyes landed on and he snatched up from the desk was a brand new, sleek blue flash drive. Nic seized the drive and strode back out of the room, only to walk face first into a flash of white light. When Nic had had a second to blink away his surprise, he saw Max Caulfield only a step or two away from him, grinning presumably at how off guard she had managed to catch him. The camera held between her hands began to emit the polaroid and Nic shook his head at her as she reached for it.

"Sorry, saw my opportunity to get a good shot of you in action. I only really got one picture of you in Arcadia Bay and it didn't seem very fair to you." For a second, Nic thought about having a talk with her about what she might do with the photographs and then decided against it. People who valued privacy as much as Max and Chloe did were unlikely to violate his own. Nic held up the flashdrive for the room to see, though Geoff was more interested in the hot glazed donut held in his right hand. Nic chuckled.

"I wanna see it when it develops," he told Max, who shrugged as if to say it was his and then placed the photo down on the table beside the Hi-Fi. "But I guess it's time to start?"

"I'm good for that," Chloe told him. Nic found the port and slid the flash drive into place. While the three of them quipped about whether or not Max had earned a drink that day (Nic was with Chloe and Geoff on this one: a promotion, especially around the holidays, was worth celebrating) Nic did his best to access the files on the drive without too much delay. A small beep signified that the file had been loaded under Nic's expert button mashing.

"Didn't you say there'd be someone else?" Max asked him. Nic shrugged.

"Yeah, but no telling when they'll show," he told the woman, passing behind her and her lover as he returned to his perch atop the now significantly more full cooler. His left hand ran absentmindedly across the knees of his dark jeans, as if he were dusting himself off for some reason and with his right he found purchase on the remote sitting on the small card table near his beer. "Best just to get on with it," he counseled, holding the small remote aloft. While he sensed a certain shared trepidation in Max's face, Geoff and Chloe wore matching looks of poorly contained eagerness. The two really  _were_ somewhat alike in ways that an outside observer, who had never seen them interact but spotted them together out and about would never have understood.

"In that case," Chloe said, "go! We pause for Chinese and nothing less!" A bit awkward at everyone's exuberance, Nic pressed play and watched the familiar two or three seconds of silence shift forward.  _They're going to kill me when they find out,_ he told himself. Frankly, MK had already threatened to have his head checked for his decision. Someone, and Nic did not turn to look at who, popped the top of another beer. He hoped it wasn't Geoff. Nic closed his eyes and grabbed at his own drink when his voice began to sound through the speakers. Nic knew he was unlikely to ever get used to listening to his own work with others who were genuinely interested in it. That was alright though. He was among friends.

" _From the Public Radio Alliance and Minnow Beats Whale, it's Tanis. I'm Nic Silver. We're telling the story of Tanis in order every two weeks, so if you're new to Tanis, you should go back and start at the beginning. We'll try not to get too far ahead. We'll be here when you get back."_

Chloe figured that, judging by the look on his face, his clenched fists in his lap whenever he was not holding onto the bottle or standing up to get someone another drink, this whole thing had felt like hell for Nic. His rigid posture and the tension in his neck evidenced by his frequent attempts throughout the episode to relieve it by popping it were big indicators, but she had to be honest. The man's clenched jaw and his unwillingness to look anyone directly in the face were the biggest giveaways. Chloe kind of got it, though, she thought as she jabbed her fork into a pile of noodles in front of her. This whole experience had been terribly personal for Chloe and Max and the idea that they had put that out there for everyone to hear sometimes still made Chloe sit up in the middle of the night from a nightmare. Max had been kind enough to pretend that she had not been on the receiving end of most of them, but sometimes not even Max was that good an actress.

" _So, there it was. I had spent the weekend with someone who styled themselves a mass murderer inside of the town which they claim they had killed. It took me some time to process both of the stories these women gave me. The trip back to Seattle gave me some peace and quiet and with the Blur back in the realm of bad memories, I_ had  _the focus to do just that. What I reflected on was not just the narrative that Chloe and Max had spun for me and not even the stories of people like Rachel Amber, Nathan Prescott and Mark Jefferson, who were so integral to their stories. What I thought about as I rode back to the Public Radio Alliance studios was all the strangeness in the world, all the strangeness in the universe. There is still so much which I do not understand, which I don't think we're supposed to understand. I thought about life and love and a town unusually marred and I decided that I just couldn't agree with the idea of Max as some kind of selfish, cold-blooded killer. I know I'm not the judge of good and evil, but I have come to know something else, as well._

_There are dangerous things._

_But I don't always think we get what we deserve._

_It's Tanis. I'm Nic Silver. We'll be back in two weeks with the next episode. Until then, keep looking."_

Chloe leaned back, feeling a little more grim and a little less merry than she had been when she first arrived.  _That's alright. Everything sounds about right._ At least, it sounded about as right as it could with Max's moment of self-loathing and self-doubt laid out for all the world to hear.  _I don't know what we're doing, here._  Chloe had always been dubious about the idea of putting all of this out there. Now, after listening to it, her stomach felt like it had no bottom, she was suddenly cool enough to wish she hadn't left her jacket in the car and she wasn't sure how to tell Max or Nic, after all of this, that they could not release this. A grim sort of silence settled about the table. Max's frown, which Chloe marked as being the result of Nic contradicting her with his closing remarks, made Chloe a little bit afraid. Not afraid of Max, so much as of the fight that was going to result if she spoke her mind about her doubts about releasing the episode after all of the time, effort and energy expended by everyone in the room. Chloe bit her bottom lip.

A beep shattered the silence as Nic crossed the room and turned the Hi-Fi off. She watched him retrieve the flashdrive. Max seized the drink in front of her quickly, angrily, and emptied it. Glass clinked against ice inside of the cooler as Geoff fished out another bottle. As for Chloe, she turned to her second beer, which had remained mostly untouched throughout the length of this new episode of Tanis and stared at it. The rather excessive order of Chinese takeout sat arrayed in front of them, not as well dug into as it should be. Slowly, in the ensuing awkward silence, Chloe's left hand found her shitty, plastic fork and she picked at the lo mein on the paper plate in front of her. Finally, Max exhaled and Chloe shot her a look as the woman retrieved her chopsticks and started at her own meal. Chloe turned her eyes on Nic and Geoff as she chewed. Nic sat back down on the cooler, which rocked a bit beneath him before he readjusted. The man placed the flash drive in question down on the table and shoved it toward Chloe.

"For your records," Nic told her. The man smiled as if he had just made a joke. Chloe did not see a joke. She did not find anything funny about all of this. True, Chloe had had no delusions about her life, not before or after the Storm. To lay it all out for Nic, something she had not even done for her one non-Arcadia Bay friend, had been stressful enough. To hear it as the outside world would hear it, the truth instead of obfuscation, well, that had been devastating. Chloe had felt worse: the day she lost her father, the day she lost Max, the day she lost Rachel, the day she lost her hometown, even the day when she realized Max's emotional state had gotten so bad that she was a genuine danger to herself had all been so much more painful than this moment, but it robbed her of her voice. She reached out with her right hand and, feeling unnatural, grabbed the flashdrive and drew her arm back across the table. Chloe knew she should speak, that she needed to say something, but every time she tried to think of a response, all she wanted to do was say that that episode of Nic's, the culmination of his hard work and their mutual painful weekend, could never see the light of day.

It was ultimately selfish and so Chloe was relieved when a knock on the door sounded and Nic perked up suddenly, his attention redirected. Chloe's grief and anger fell quiet under her curiosity as she watched the stress drain out of Nic's face to be replaced by a kind of excitement as he rose. She raised an eyebrow.

"What's that about?" she asked the man.

"That's our last guest," Nic told her, staying still to the spot before raising his voice. "Door's open, come on in." The door swung open rather quickly and perhaps a bit more forcefully than necessary. Without hesitation, a woman stepped into the room. Chloe narrowed her eyes at this woman. Maybe Chloe's age, she was definitely Max's height with similarly colored hair, though hers reached as far as possibly her mid back. Other than a pair of really stylized sunglasses which seemed to be all sharp angles and edges, she wore plain clothing: a dark blue top and a pair of jeans that looked like they had most certainly seen better days. Adding in the pair of chucks, Chloe rather thought that this woman and Max would have gotten along fine in their taste of clothes, even if Max rated a bit more on the hippie side than the hipster. Chloe might not have  _known_ their last guest, but, the more the merrier. Chloe was grateful for the distraction. There was no way she would have been able to keep her mouth shut without it.  _Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about it. This is just cold feet._

"Merry Christmas," the newcomer greeted. "Or Happy Holidays. Take your pick." The door all but slammed as the woman reached back and kicked it shut. Chloe blinked as the woman adjusted her laptop bag. She noticed the phone hanging from the brunette's hip and the way her eyebrow arched challengingly when no one spoke at first, though Nic so obviously stared.  _Why is she familiar?_ "What's going on? Did I just walk in on the lamest Christmas party in history or did someone die? Shit,  _did_ someone die?" She supposed it was rather quiet and somber for a party. Chloe shared a confused look with Max, who also seemed to be wholly distracted by the sudden shift in atmosphere and then it clicked.

"It's good to see you," Nic told the woman. "Come sit down. We've got Chinese and entirely too much beer."

"Or too little," Geoff posited in response before leaning down to fish a drink from the cooler whose lid Nic had just vacated. He came up rather quickly with a can of what Chloe and Max had brought. Chloe's attention, though, turned to this newcomer, waiting for any confirmation of her suspicion, one which Max had just begun to share, judging by the slightly teasing look on her face as her eyes shot between Chloe and the woman. Chloe wondered how best to ascertain if her hunch was correct when the newcomer turned her eyes on her and Max.

"Huh, just like the pictures. Fair enough," sounding mildly bored with her own words, the woman crossed to the table and lowered herself into a seat on Max's left. "You know, if you you guys are wanting to go a little more off the grid as far as social media, you'll want to start by getting rid of Facebook." The attitude was quick, blunt and to the point. It was almost respectable in a way. There was very little doubt left in Chloe's mind as to who they were being treated to an appearance by.  _I thought she was super paranoid and didn't go anywhere near people who knew who she was?_

"Beerkatnip?" Geoff asked, offering a drink to the woman as she plopped down into her seat.

"Cute," she shot back, sounding unimpressed. The woman pushed her sunglasses up onto her head so that they helped hold back her hair and after staring at Geoff for a few seconds with appraising dark eyes, reached across the table and took the offered drink anyway. "But don't." Nic shrugged. "Thanks, Geoff."

"It's good to finally meet the elusive MK." Chloe did herself a favor and held her breath for a second. She did not mind looking openly at the woman, did not mind if anyone else saw.  _Yeah,_ she thought as MK made a half-assed gesture mimicking a toast,  _you know, under different circumstances, I could crush on this girl like mad. But I have everything I could ever want or need right here._ Chloe turned away from Max, who had pulled a face at her.  _I just have to not piss her off until the new episode is released. After that there's nothing I can do to stop it._

"Hey, stop staring or I'm going to get the wrong idea," Max chided her.

"Same," MK announced, turning her attention back on the women. Max held out a hand to shake and Chloe followed suit. The hacker shrugged, reached out to give both women a quick handshake and then paused to lower her bag to the ground beside her with surprising care and tenderness. Chloe guessed that technology was important to her.  _Makes sense._ "Right, so, I was promised drinks, dinner and a show."

"Already played the episode," Nic informed her. "I told you we'd be starting as soon as everyone got here."

"Eh, price you pay for free time, I guess," the woman responded.

"On the other hand," Nic told her, sounding more himself than he had since Chloe and Max had first arrived, "Max brought donuts. Fresh donuts."

"I can get behind that," MK told him, swiveling her head around toward the box in the center of the table, surrounded on all sides by takeout containers at least half-full of various dishes. Frankly, with her mind not as occupied by the potential repercussions of the episode being released, the smell of the food in front of her actually brought Chloe's appetite back. She returned to eating. "I'm a bit bummed out I won't get to hear the episode though. Only got to hear a couple of pieces and I know you worked your ass off on it."

"I'll tell you about it some time," Nic promised her, before returning to his beer-holding throne.

"What do you mean you won't get to hear it?" Chloe asked, offput. Surely Nic would give it to MK before being released, but even if not, well, "don't you listen to the show to make sure Nic here stays on the straight and narrow, unbiased and all that shit?" Actually, Chloe rather thought MK had revealed she listened to the podcast to make sure that Nic didn't 'make her look like an asshole', a feat which Chloe knew from experience was easy to do if you weren't someone who fucked around as often with too much small talk or who sugarcoated their every feeling. She was rather impressed to think that the only time he  _had_ made MK sound like an ass, the woman had been being one.

"Well, yeah, but - "

"But I won't be airing this episode." Max's fists closed so tightly that the can in her left hand dented slightly. Chloe watched her grow rigid, and her face pale. Even though warning sirens were going off in Chloe's head, she couldn't deny feeling  _very_ relieved at this revelation.  _Holy fuck, thank you, Nic Silver._

"Why?" Max asked suddenly. She did not sound angry, which surprised and relieved Chloe, but she sounded winded. She sounded like someone had kicked her in the gut. "After everything we went through, why?" Chloe understood. They had all kind of bled for this episode, metaphorically speaking.

"I could lie to you and tell you it's because I don't think the world's ready for time travel or dream walking or living elementals. I could tell you it's because it wasn't about Tanis. They're both true but that's not why."

"Then why?" Max asked, pained. Chloe was a little curious, too. She couldn't entirely understand why Nic would do this, no matter how happy she was that he had. Max, on the other hand, looked stressed out.  _She feels like we went through hell for nothing._

"Because in the end, it would mislead the listener." Max paused, as if she had not thought of this. Chloe shot her eyes past Max to MK, who shrugged very slightly and then Geoff who only stared directly at Max, his jaw set as if waiting on marching orders.

"W-why?" Quieter now than before, rather more like herself when talking about delicate subjects, Max looked at Nic with the eyes of someone who was truly listening to what they were hearing. She genuinely wanted to understand him now, instead of just vent her anger. Nic stared past Chloe at Max, rather like Geoff had been a moment ago and Chloe saw the two catch eyes, something which she knew Max had serious difficulty with, unless the other eyes were Chloe's.

"The story was told by people who are hurting too much. It was told in a way that paints good people like bad people."

"Isn't your journalistic duty to the truth?" Max challenged him.

"Yes, yes it is," Nic told her. The man leaned back in his seat, fixed a confident and comfortable look on his face and tried to reason with Max. He looked as if he believed in what he was doing and saying. "And theoretically, this is the story of a lifetime. Theoretically. I don't have the truth here. I have people in pain. I have peoples' memories. I have a scary story told in a graveyard and, to top it all off, I realized that it's not my story to tell." Shakily, the photographer exhaled and put her hands comfortably, carefully back down on the table. She did, however, look away from Nic and away from everyone else, to boot.  _This story would bring trouble down on me and Max. Best case scenario, it could put Max back in the hospital._ This had been a risk Max had been all too eager to accept to begin with, but Chloe had tried her best to honor it as Max's choice. What Chloe had not known going in was that Max had been building up to a big reveal, one which painted her as a monster who killed everyone in her hometown town for purely selfish reasons. Maybe that had not been Max's intent originally: Chloe had noticed a marked change in the woman's behavior after standing in the remains of the Prescott Dormitories. Chloe exhaled, too, unaware she had been holding her breath.

"I understand," Max whispered. Chloe slid the flash drive into her pocket and patted it.

"That is the only copy of the episode that exists," Nic told her, his eyes slowly shifting from Max to her. Chloe rather liked this confident, self-assured Nic Silver. She knew that, to a degree, it was a face, a face she knew him well enough in their two days of close association to know was not entirely accurate. Then again, everyone wore faces sometimes. Max had plenty and some days Chloe wasn't sure she could recognize and see through them all. Chloe wore her own when it was necessary. She could not judge him. What she did know was that, under all of Nic's own trauma, under the secrets he was trying to get at lodged inside of his own brain, the confident, self-assured journalist was there, doing his job in the face of stressful situations. Throughout this entire conversation, MK continued to eat, as if interested but relatively unmoved by the scene in front of her. That was alright. She was, in a way, an outsider.

"Chloe, If you come to me within the next year and say you want me to have that, to publish that, I won't do it. If you come to me after that, the choice is yours. But I will have to add a note on, to say that I believe that much of the story they were about to hear is painted by the grief of being the only confirmed survivors of Arcadia Bay and not because either of you are bad people." Max's head lifted a bit, frown evident. "It might sound like I'm trying to call you both mentally unstable - but I'm not, and I don't want to have to do that. So think about it before you come back to me saying you want me to put this up." Nic looked away from Chloe, away from Max and nodded at MK who responded by waving a forkful of pepper chicken in the air. "In the meantime, my friend here will see to it that no one makes a bad choice and tries to upload it themselves." Chloe nodded. She did not think she could go head to head with Meerkatnip in a battle of technology, even if she wanted to see this episode released and their still new lives most likely ruined. MK plopped the bite into her mouth, raising an eyebrow tauntingly. Chloe had to admit she liked the woman challenging her from across the table, even if the challenge was entirely unnecessary.

"Well, now that we've got all  _that_ out of the way," MK started. Her next words were cut off entirely.

"Why do you keep saying that," Max hissed, somewhat angrily. MK froze and on the other side of the table, Geoff sat his drink down and folded his hands in front of him, looking patiently over at Max. Chloe turned toward Max, watching the frustration form on her face. Maybe Max was not as okay with this as she had let on. Maybe she did not yet understand what Nic was doing or why he was doing it.  _Or maybe,_ Chloe thought,  _all of this means that Max is still kind of a danger to herself._ That thought alone was chilling enough to rob Chloe of what little appetite she had managed to scrounge up. Nic paused halfway to sitting back down.

"What?"

"Why do you keep saying 'only confirmed survivors' like that?" Chloe turned her attention back to the man. This was what she and Max had wanted to ask him, but Chloe had envisioned it happening over a beer while jamming to music that she would normally have found too light and Max probably too heavy. She had not imagined  _this._ "Every time you talk about Arcadia Bay, you say that. What does that even mean?" A brand new uncomfortable silence spread throughout the room. It traveled alongside a look which passed from MK to Nic. MK, who was still frozen with a fresh bite of chicken on her fork, made a face that seemed to be encouragement, as if she were trying to get Nic to speak. Nic looked doubtful. Max had taken to looking between the two expectantly when MK finally rolled her eyes and sighed exaggeratedly.

"Look," the other woman said, "I can't pretend to understand what you guys have gone through, but I don't have patience with dancing around shit or sugar coating it, so if this is insensitive, well then that just sucks. Do you guys realize the number of conspiracy theories that have surfaced over you two and Arcadia Bay?" The question was asked with such bluntness that Chloe felt suddenly stupid for her answer. While the hacker mimicked Geoff's folding of his hands and his observant attitude, Chloe shook her head, no.

"No," Max answered. "I know there's some but – I try not to look at anything about it." Chloe nodded her own agreement as MK grimaced.

"So you don't know anything about the Portland incident?" Max shook her head this time, but Chloe saw the way her hand rose to toy with the strap of her camera bag. Max had gone from being on the offensive to being on her back foot. "Look," the woman started, "there have been loads of conspiracy theories, from the whole town being made up of crisis actors to false flag attacks, to alien invasions, all kinds of crazy shit all over the regular internet and the deep web. Most of it is bullshit. Every once in a while someone claims to have found another survivor. Again, most of it's nonsense. Then there's the Bay Seven."

"The Bay Seven?" Chloe asked.

"Yeah, Nic, if you could stop people from doing your 'repeating shit at you' thing, that'd be great," MK told the man, before turning back to Chloe. Chloe shrugged.

"My bad. It does rub off."

"Do yourself a favor and break the habit. I mean, you can get away with it better than Nic can, but it'll still piss people off," Chloe turned and stuck her tongue out at Nic who only shook his head at her in disbelief. She probably did seem strange to Nic, Geoff and in that moment even Max. This was, after all, no laughing matter. That being said, it was great to hear someone else as annoyed by Nic's verbal tic as she was.

"The Bay Seven are the seven people who were confirmed to be alive before the storm hit whose bodies were never found. Not counting the dead gir- not counting Rachel Amber." Chloe felt a muscle in her face twitch in response to the offhand comment.  _Calm down, she wasn't trying to be an ass._  MK continued, almost as if unaware of, or unphased by Chloe's flare of irritation. "There are all kinds of conspiracy theories especially about the Bay Seven. People claiming to be one of them, claiming to have seen one of them. If there's any evidence attached to the claim it tends to backfire. Especially if you have a modicum of common sense. The story with the largest amount of traction is the Portland Incident."

"What happened?" Max asked, her anger forgotten and replaced with a severe discomfort that did not do anything to rob Chloe of her curiosity. Chloe leaned forward, hands on the table, suddenly not hungry or thirsty.

"The long and short of it is that someone posted on Reddit about seeing one of the Bay Seven outside of a nightclub in downtown Portland, when he showed up to pick up a young blonde girl about our age after she was thrown out of it." MK tilted her head as she reached down for her phone and sat it down on the table in front of her. "I think it was called the Platinum Globe or something like that. She was, it seems, making a scene so people started paying attention. The man who posted this has since retracted his story and claimed to have made it all up. Other people on the scene corroborated his story, though and they did not retract. One of the missing Arcadia Bay residents was identified as the man who picked this mystery girl up out front."

"Who was it?" Max asked. She did not sound entirely as if she wanted to know. Chloe didn't think she could blame her. MK leaned back in her chair. Who? Max repeated, insistently.

"A man called Samuel Taylor. An employee at Blackwell Academy."

"Samuel," Max said, sitting up straight as she turned to at Chloe. "'You and Blackwell are connected by Time and Tide' he said. Samuel knew something."

"Is there any evidence?" Chloe asked, excitedly. MK looked moderately confused by this last exchange, but she sadly shook her head.

"There  _was_. The original post claimed to have a photo but it never got uploaded and hasn't been seen since." Chloe could feel her heart bashing aggressively against her ribcage. She also felt a little lightheaded. Her long fingers flexed open and closed ahead of her. She was not sure what she had expected when she and Max had decided to  _ask_ this question to begin with, but it wasn't anything like  _this. "_ There's one other thing, one thing that supports the guy's story. The girl was said to have left behind a copy of a very short story, a piece of flash fiction entitled 'The Problem With the Storm.'"

"And?" Chloe asked.

"Well, anything after this and I'll have to ask you if you know how to pay in coin, but this one's on the house. The story is real and I will send you a copy of it in just a moment." At this, MK unfolded her hands and took hold of the phone she had just freed from the holder on her hip. Chloe was about to speak, but she felt Max's left hand close around her right forearm and turned toward her girlfriend instead of anyone else in the room.

"If Samuel's alive – if Samuel's alive I need to find him," Max told her. She looked around at Nic and Geoff. They both looked unsteady, concerned. Chloe understood. Max's transformation was sudden and brutal, from angry and dejected to consumed and obsessed. Chloe's phone vibrated in her pocket.

"There," MK announced, setting her phone down and immediately retrieving her fork to continue her Christmas Eve dinner. "It's in your email."

"How in the hell do you have my email?" Chloe asked before turning to Nic. "Come to think of it, how did you even get ahold of us?" MK laughed, loudly as if the question was funny, was stupid or obvious.

"Do you really wanna know?"

"Hell yeah," Chloe shot back. "We've been covering our asses as good as we could since coming back to Seattle."

"Yeah, maybe," MK told her, not quite committing to telling them whether or not they had done a good enough job. Chloe rather thought the fact that everyone was sitting at that table together in that exact moment was answer enough to that question. "But your university's servers are  _not_ as secure as they really should be."

"You broke into my school records?"

"Guilty," MK admitted to her, before stuffing her mouth full of chicken. Chloe couldn't help but laugh. Of all the  _fucking_ ways for her to blow it, to fail to keep their return to Seattle a secret, it had actually come down to trying to go to college.  _This is what I get for trying to 'better' myself._

"Alright," Max muttered to herself, "alright."

"Max," Chloe counseled, leaning to the side so as to bring herself in close to Max, to draw her focus, "calm down."

"Yeah," she agreed. "I'll calm down. We can figure this out tomorrow. If Samuel's out there. I have to find him." Chloe sighed and tried to figure out the best way to distract Max. Instead, Max looked past her to Nic. "Pass me a cold one. Or two."


	12. The Problem With The Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end!!!!

Disclaimer: I own the rights to more or less nothing seen here, nothing from Life is Strange or the Public Radio Alliance or Pacific Northwest Stories. This is entirely a fanbased work for personal enjoyment.

* * *

**The Problem With the Storm**

_By: Anonymous_

Most tornadoes form over land. In the months after the Storm, from the building I squatted in, I heard it called a hurricane. That's not quite right. There was nothing tropical about this water and this was not a hurricane. There is a type of tornado called a waterspout, which forms over water or forms over land and moves to water. This Storm was the most destructive version of that phenomenon measured on Earth and it came on all at once.

Yet, the trouble with the Storm wasn't how big it was or the speed at which it struck. It was huge, bigger than anything I'd ever seen. The walls of the cyclonic structure were fresh and new when I got my best look at it, but it did not start as a tornado. It started as a soft breeze on a cool day. It started as a gathering of clouds. It started as the world darkening around us, casting shadows on our homes, the thoughts we were harboring, the goals we were chasing and the people we loved. It started out as innocuous overcast skies on a fall day. That was the trouble with the Storm: by the time it became the beast that would flatten our homes, eradicate thoughts, suck our goals up into the air and out of reach for all time and put out the flames of our love, it was already on our doorstep and only the deepest foundations of the Earth withstood its onslaught.

It's all B.S.


End file.
